Cooking with Kids as Tuesday Tips – Pancakes To Make While Listening to Grandma Music and Kid Songs!

Making pancakes is something that the whole family can participate in especially on a day when the kids are home for vacation, or on a weekend day. I like short cuts – and often just buy pancake mix, but here are some great ideas on how to make your short cut into a delicious event while cooking with kids. And of course put on some of my Rockin’ Grandma Music and Kids Songs – like Silly Kwela Sample, or Happy Song Sample while doing it!

How to Make
Your Own Pancake Mixes
Make either buttermilk or sour cream pancakes!

The secret to great pancake mixes lies in the  dairy—dry buttermilk or sour cream.  Cheap pancake mixes rely on baking powder with little buttermilk or sour cream.  That’s because the dairy costs ten times as much as flour.  But the dairy adds richness and flavor and reacts with the baking soda to create the bubbles in your batter.  If you’re willing to invest in a little dry buttermilk or sour cream powder you can make better pancake mixes than you’ll buy in most stores.

With the following chart, you’ll see how to make your own gourmet buttermilk or sour cream pancake mix so that you can have great “from scratch” pancakes when you are in a hurry.  It will have more buttermilk or sour cream than the store mixes and will taste better.  Add some tasty inclusions for a real treat.  It will be storable and since it
has everything included but eggs.

You can make these mixes as large or as small as you like. You can make these choices but keep the same ratio of ingredients to make it any size.

For easier measurement, remember that one tablespoon equals three teaspoons.

Combine all the ingredients and whisk together to distribute evenly. Store your pancake mixes in an air-tight container in a cool place and it should last a long time.  (While it has not been tested, these mixes will last up to five years or longer).

You can buy buttermilk powder in your grocery store. You can also buy a quality, long lasting buttermilk powder at the Prepared Pantry which is an on line store where I buy all my bread mixes for our bread machine.  You can also buy dry sour cream powder at a reasonable price at The Prepared Pantry.

Use the pancake mix as a base mix by adding fruit, nuts, baking chips or more.  Of course, you can make it plain for some special, extra rich pancakes.

To use your mix:

1.Measure the desired mix into a large bowl.

2. In a smaller bowl, whisk one egg for every one to 1 1/2 cups of mix.

3. Add 1 1/2 tablespoons melted butter or oil to the egg for every one cup of
mix.

4. Add 2/3 cup water to the egg mixture for every one cup of mix. Add the
liquid mixture to the mix and stir until just combined. The batter will
probably be too dry so add more water to reach the desired consistency.

Variations

Here are 20 mixes that you can make.  Of course, this is just a beginning; use
your imagination to create more great gourmet pancakes.   You can buy mixes similar to this at The Prepared Pantry too.

1. Gourmet Chocolate Chip Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add mini milk chocolate chips). Serve with maple syrup, coconut cream syrup, or vanilla
   cream syrup.
2. Gourmet Cinnamon Chip Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add mini cinnamon chips). Serve with maple syrup, cinnamon cream syrup, or cinnamon
   apple syrup.
3. Gourmet Peanut Butter Chip Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add mini peanut butter chips). Serve with maple syrup or maple cream syrup.
4. Gourmet Walnutand Date Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add chopped walnuts and dates). Serve with maple syrup, cinnamon cream syrup, or maple cream syrup.
5. Gourmet Apple Cinnamon Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add grated fresh apples or Fuji dry apples plus cinnamon). Serve with maple syrup, cinnamon apple syrup, or maple cream syrup.
6. Gourmet Baked Apple Pancakes
   (Add grated fresh apples or Fuji dry apples plus maple flavoring). Serve with maple syrup, cinnamon apple syrup, or maple cream syrup.
7. Gourmet Cranberry Nut Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add chopped walnuts and dry cranberries). Serve with maple syrup, cinnamon apple
   syrup, or coconut cream syrup.
8. Gourmet Caramel Pear Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add diced dry pears plus a touch of nutmeg and a little cinnamon). Serve with cinnamon cream or vanilla cream syrup or a sprinkle of brown sugar.
9. Gourmet Blueberry Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add blueberry baking bits plus a touch of lemon and nutmeg). Serve with blueberry syrup or cinnamon cream syrup.
10. Gourmet Fresh Peach and Pecan Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add chopped fresh peaches and chopped pecans plus a touch of lemon and
    nutmeg). Serve with Orchard Peach or Vanilla Cream Syrup.
11. Gourmet Raspberry Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add raspberry baking chips plus a touch of lemon). Serve with raspberry syrup.
12. Gourmet Banana Pecan Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add a mashed banana and a little banana flavoring along with cinnamon and chopped pecans). Top with more sliced bananas. Serve with maple syrup or cinnamon cream syrup.
13. Gourmet Fresh Strawberry Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add fresh strawberries thinly sliced and a touch of lemon). It’s easier to slice your strawberries with a strawberry slicer. Serve with strawberry syrup or vanilla cream syrup.
14. Gourmet Tropical Coconut Banana Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add flaked coconut and mashed bananas).  Serve with coconut cream syrup or
    vanilla cream syrup.
15. Gourmet Hawaiian Pineapple Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add granulated pineapple available at The Prepared Pantry). These are really good pancakes—sold at Prepared Pantry in a mix. Serve with coconut cream syrup or vanilla cream syrup.
16. Gourmet Honey Buckwheat Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add fourth of a cup buckwheat flour for every cup of  flour.  Sweeten the pancakes with dry honey instead of  sugar). Both dry honey and buckwheat flour is available at the  Prepared Pantry.  Serve with any syrup.
17. Gourmet Pineapple Banana Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add granulated pineapple and mashed bananas).  Serve with coconut cream syrup or vanilla cream syrup.
18. Gourmet Sourdough Pancakes (Add sourdough flavor available from The Prepared Pantry).  Serve with any syrup.
19. Gourmet Pumpkin  Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (For each 1½ cups of flour, add 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg, 1 tablespoon brown sugar, and 3/4  cup canned or pureed pumpkin). Serve with vanilla cream or cinnamon  cream syrup
20. Gourmet Strawberry Banana Sour Cream/Buttermilk Pancakes (Add strawberry chips and mashed banana.). Serve with strawberry syrup or vanilla cream syrup.

In some cases, you will want to supplement the fruit in these mixes with additional flavor.
You can purchase a wide variety of quality flavors from The Prepared Pantry.

Most of the ingredients mentioned here—the Buttermilk Powder and Sour Cream Powder plus the Baking chips including raspberry, strawberry, and blueberry baking bits–can
be purchased at The Prepared Pantry.  The Prepared Pantry also carries a full line of kitchen tools and cookware.