Multigrain Pancake Mix

A nutritious, multigrain mix for enjoying delicious pancakes - minus the guilt.

My sister loves pancakes. Like, LOVES them. I'm pretty sure she could eat them for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert every day. And if I'm being honest, so could I.

Obviously we don't do that, for a myriad of reasons, but we could, just saying.

So, when when Trader Joe's stopped making our favorite multigrain pancake mix, we were faced with a serious problem. Where were we supposed to get our pancake fix when the one thing that made it possible was GONE? How were we supposed to survive without pancakes?

The answer to that overly melodramatic question? Homemade pancake mix! While browsing one day, I found one of the few healthy pancake recipes that didn't taste like cardboard; you can find it here.

Using it for inspiration, I reduced the quantity of the oats and flour and added in some different flours like pearl millet, finger millet, and sorghum (or bajri, nachni, and jowar in Hindi) to increase the nutritional value while keeping the taste relatively the same. These flours, when added, give the finished pancakes a more whole-grain and hearty taste.

You might be wondering, what's the use of dry pancake mix when you don't have pancakes? Well, the recipe below includes the proportion of some wet ingredients to the dry mix to make two servings. You can halve or double that quantity if you like.

This recipe is another one of what I categorize as "flimsy": it can be played around with, tweaked, and it'll still turn out okay. It's also easily made vegan(sub milk for any milk substitute, and replace the egg with a flax/chia egg. Funny story: I was once making waffles with this mix and completely forgot to add any type of egg/egg substitute. It came out pretty much the same and tasted delicious!) Since this recipe is super tweakable(is that a word?), I've also included some of my favorite variations to try. And remember, this works exactly the same for waffles too!

With that said, enough of my babbling, and I hope you enjoy the recipe!

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Basic Pancake/Waffle Mix

Course: Breakfast

Author: Prachi Marfatia

Servings: 8-10 servings of 2-3 pancakes each

Ingredients:

2.5 cups wholewheat flour

2.5 cups oat flour(just grind up some rolled oats, or instant oats work fine too)

1 cup nachni (finger millet) flour

1 cup bajri (pearl millet) flour

1 cup jowar(sorghum) flour

3 tbsp baking powder

2 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp cinnamon, optional but recommended

Directions:

Mix everything together well in a large bowl(even better if you sift it). Then simply store it in airtight containers! Does not need to be refrigerated.

Wet Ingredients(this is for 2 servings):

1 1/2 cup of pancake mix above

1 egg or chia/flax egg

1/2 cup milk of choice*

1/4 cup water or more milk

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, starting with dry and then adding the wet ingredients. (I would recommend adding in everything except the milk, then slowly pouring it in until you get the right consistency).

If you are making waffles, just grease your iron and proceed as normal.

Otherwise:

Heat a pan over medium heat, and spread on a little oil. Then simply scoop some batter on, wait, then flip it, wait again, and transfer to a plate. You now have what is known in the modern world as a pancake! My favorite way to eat these are with some maple syrup, jam, or nut butter, but choose whatever you like.

Flavoring Ideas:

Vanilla Chai: grated nutmeg + vanilla protein/milk powder

Strawberry Cheesecake: blobs of cream cheese + strawberries

Lemon Blueberry: recipe here!

*Can be replaced by mixing together 1/4 cup each of yogurt and water.

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