My kids are pancake FAN-atics! My 15 year old has been making his own pancakes since kindergarten. He asks for pancakes every year on his birthday- and if he ever got a chance to go, I’m sure IHOP would be his favorite restaurant! ha ha. So I couldn’t finish up ‘Kids in the Kitchen’ week without sharing our favorite pancake recipe.
Most often, we have a homemade pancake mix in our pantry for the kids to make their own pancakes. But we do have occasion where we make our pancakes from scratch as well. We use both recipes.

One reason pancakes are great for beginning cooks is that they:
- LOVE TO MEASURE! You know this if you’ve ever made cookies or other baked items with kids! Scooping out the ingredients, and dumping them in a bowl is quite literally a favorite task.

- They can squeeze the pancake batter on the griddle! It’s easy for these little hands to use a squeeze bottle. We’ve been doing it this way for years!

- And perhaps MY favorite part, they can use their choice of add-ins to make their pancakes unique for them! Some of these add-ins, like the chia seeds, we didn’t add until the batter was on the griddle.

Which brings me to our favorite pancake add-ins!
ADD-IN #1 CHIA SEEDS
First up- CHIA SEEDS! They give a little crunch, without the flavor! Your kids will just notice the pancake flavor and nothing else. We add chia seeds all the time!

ADD IN #2 CARROT CAKE
For the carrot cake pancake recipe, we add 1 teaspoon of cinnamon to the mix, then we shred the carrots and add them after they go on the griddle. You can do this before of course, but it gives the kids a task to do when they sprinkle the carrots on after the batter is poured onto the griddle.

ADD IN #3 CHOCOLATE AND COCONUT
Another one we add after the pancakes are on the griddle! We used some mini-vegan chocolate chips, and some shaved coconut (no sugar added to these!)

ADD IN #4 CHOCOLATE CHIP PUMPKIN CAKES
For these, you must mix the pumpkin into the batter. We used about 3 Tablespoons of pumpkin and 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice. Then sprinkled the chocolate chips on while the pancakes were cooking.

ADD IN #5 ZUCCHINI BREAD
Mmmm.. tastes just like zucchini bread, without all the oil and sugar! We added 1 teaspoon of cinnamon to the batter, and then shred the zucchini to sprinkle on after the pancakes are poured onto the griddle. Great way to get some veggies and use that garden zucchini!

ADD IN #6 STRAWBERRY SHORTCAKE
Lastly- and perhaps our favorite STRAWBERRIES! We chop some up and add it to the batter, but then we always save extra for the top! Spread some yogurt on top to give it that creamy shortcake taste!


Basic Pancakes- 6 Ways
Ingredients
- 1 cup flour, whole wheat
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 cup milk
- 1 large egg
- 2 tablespoon grapeseed oil
Instructions
- Whisk together whole wheat flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
- In a separate bowl, combine milk egg and oil. Mix wet ingredients into the dry and stir together until most of your lumps are gone. If you need to add more milk to get the consistency you like, do this now!
- Some of our favorite add-ins include:
- Chia seeds
- carrots and cinnamon
- coconut and chocolate
- pumpkin and chocolate
- zucchini
- berries
Nutrition
www.superhealthykids.com
And those are our favorite! What add-ins do you like at your house?