Gingerbread Pancakes

To spice up our Saturday morning pancake breakfast, I made Gingerbread Pancakes!  Yum.  They are pretty much like eating gingerbread cookies for breakfast, but in pancake form.  Delicious!  I highly recommend!  They are no more time consuming than my regular buttermilk pancakes, and provide a nice holiday feeling.


Gingerbread Pancakes
adapted from King Arthur Flour Baking Book

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/4 cup yellow cornmeal
2 TB sugar (I will reduce this by about half next time)
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup chopped crystallized ginger (optional)
1/4 cup molasses
1 cup buttermilk
2 TB canola oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten

Preheat and lightly butter a griddle.

In a large mixing bowl or batter bowl, whisk together the first 10 ingredients - flour thru crystallized ginger.  In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining ingredients.

Drop the batter onto the hot griddle.  Cook until the edges look dry and the top of the pancake appears a bit "set".  Flip pancakes to continue cooking and remove from griddle.  Keep warm on a cooling rack placed in a rimmed baking sheet, in a 200F oven, or serve immediately with maple syrup.
Printable Recipe

Next time, I think I will reduce the amount of sugar a bit.  Since there is sugar and molasses in the batter, I think the amount of sugar could easily be reduced.  Especially if you intend to use maple syrup.  The pancakes are not overly sweet, but I feel that that the gingerbread flavors would be more pronounced with a lower amount of sugar.  Do what you like!  I did use some crystallized ginger, but much less than the recipe suggested, only because I was not sure whether the clever girl would appreciate the flavor and texture.  It is definitely yummy with the crystallized ginger, so I recommend trying this addition if you are a ginger lover!  Finally, the original recipe suggested using a 1/4 cup measure to drop the batter onto the griddle, making approximately 12 3 1/2-inch pancakes.  I just pour some batter out onto my griddle, not using any official measurements. 

Yum!