Adventures In Oaty Goodness
My mother pointed out that “oaty” is not a real word and I countered that English is a living language. I think we reached detente. Or maybe it was an impasse. Definitely one of those…
I was visiting my parents recently and since I had my Official Blog Photographer at hand, I decided to try a new recipe while mom photographed the sometimes bumpy process. Oat flour pancakes. And my minor errors aside, they are easy and delicious. And bonus, also reasonably healthful. Even gluten free, if that’s your thing.
We started out by making the berry compote. Fresh or frozen berries would both work and since my mother had a big bag of blueberries in the freezer, that’s what we used. We added in a bit of honey and then turned the heat up to medium, stirring occasionally, while we worked on the rest of the meal.
I was working with some recipe I found on the internet as my starting point and decided to just use a “dash” of salt in my dry ingredients (instead of whatever the recipe said). However, I tried to “dash” from the big salt container, which has large holes in it, and quite a lot more salt than I intended landed in the bowl. I said “Oops!” and scowled at the bowl and then said to my mom, “Dad better not complain about this tasting too salty!” My father was off with the fairies somewhere and missed the whole exchange, thankfully. Because my larger-than-intended dash of salt wasn’t enough and the finished pancakes clearly needed a little more. In addition to the salt, in went the oat flour, a little brown sugar, and a generous amount of baking powder. I whisked all that together but had to use my fingers to break up a few clumps of the brown sugar.
Next, I made a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, cracked in my eggs, and added my milk and vanilla. I whisked these ingredients together in the middle of the bowl before I brought in the dry ingredients from the side. You could mix your wet ingredients separately before adding them in, but why dirty another bowl? I whisked until smooth and we were ready to cook.
My mom has a nice griddle pan, which we preheated, and then sprayed with cooking oil, which is a much better technique than my usual slapdash method of dripping oil into the pan, spreading it, then wiping up the excess. The pancakes each required 1/4 cup of batter, and I could manage three into the pan at a time. They didn’t quite behave like regular pancakes, since bubbles appeared on the top immediately. I had to wait until the edges looked dry and then check underneath. Once the bottoms were golden brown, I flipped them and cooked until the other side was also golden brown.
Since I was on pancake cooking duty, my mother buttered the first batch, decorated them with berry compote goodness, and presented them to my father with instructions that we needed thorough feedback. My father described them as light, tasty, and with an excellent mouth feel. I had to agree with him, once I got my own serving.
Toward the end of the cooking process, the smoke alarm went off in the house. My parents’ ceiling is quite high and I can report that the acoustics are excellent throughout the house. In the deafening cacophony, my father came into the kitchen and started fanning a light fixture with a towel. I thought that was odd until I noticed there was a little opening on the side. Then I thought it was a fancy built-in smoke detector. But the noise didn’t stop. I stepped up and added my efforts to the fanning, while my mother opened a couple doors to the chilly morning air. The clamor continued.
It was at this point that I wondered if we were fanning the wrong smoke alarm. I asked my mom where the smoke alarm actually was, and she pointed to a spot high on the wall of the living room. And quite far away from where my father and I had been focussing our efforts. We’d been fanning a light fixture. Once we aimed at the right place, we got the noise to stop, but not before we were all somewhat more hard of hearing than we’d been before breakfast started.
Bottom line, once the recipe was tweaked a little, it delivered a delicious meal. The recipe yielded twelve pancakes, four for each of us, which was perfect. We were full without being stuffed. Give it a try…I think you’ll love it!
Oaty Pancakes With Berry Compote
Click here for printable PDF of recipe.
INGREDIENTS
Berry Compote:
2 cups berries of choice, fresh or frozen
2 Tbsp honey
Pancakes:
1 1/2 cups oat flour
3 Tbsp baking powder
1 Tbsp brown sugar
heaping 1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups milk
3 eggs
1 Tbsp vanilla
oil for cooking
DIRECTIONS
Berry compote:
In a pan over medium heat, combine the berries and honey and stir until the berries soften and yield their juice. Then turn the heat to low to keep warm until serving.
Pancakes:
Preheat a griddle pan over medium high heat while mixing the pancake batter.
Combine dry ingredients in a bowl, and whisk to combine and break up any clumps of brown sugar. Make a little well in the middle, and add the wet ingredients into the well. Use your whisk to mix together the wet ingredients before whisking in the dry ingredients. Whisk until smooth.
Oil the griddle pan, and add your pancake batter 1/4 cup per pancake. Cook until the edges look dry. Check the underside, and once it’s golden brown, flip the pancakes and cook until the other side is also golden brown.
Serve immediately with butter and berry compote.
