Island Cakes

Normally when I make pancakes "from scratch" I use a mix. From scratch means that I didn't pull them out of a freezer box or something. This morning though I really scratched them out. I mentioned that I had a coupon for free yogurt, the catch was that I had to buy a bag of granola. Now the granola was on sale so we went ahead and did it. Perusing the flavors revealed a Hawaiian mix (with ginger toasted macadamia, coconut, and pineapple) that sounded tasty to both of us, so I grabbed a bag. Since I didn't purchase any plain vanilla yogurt I was trying to think what else I could do with the granola. I decided that I wanted to turn it into tasty tasty pancakes, since I am all about pancakes lately. In the end I think these only merit one tasty, there is room for improvement. (see the end of the post for the recipe I used today)

My complaints today are: The batter was too thick and resulted in a very dense cake, not light and fluffy like I get with my store bought mix. The granola was not prominent enough, and the pancake in general lacked flavor. The bit of texture from the nuts and oats was quite good though. The pineapple did not stand out, but might be more noticeable with the increase in granola. Also, I need a topping of some sort with my pancakes, but these didn't taste right with maple syrup.

The next time I think I would reduce the amount of flour, maybe to 3/4 cup, and increase the amount of granola to 3/4 cup. The amount of milk may have to be adjusted to get a better consistency but I couldn't say without mixing it up first. The mix does need to be a hair thinner though, this one did not pour so much as glop onto the pan. I bet a dash of vanilla would help the general cake flavor as well.

As far as toppings my first instinct is to get some coconut syrup. We had this in Hawaii and I love it. It would be a match with the coconut shavings in the granola. Another possibility would be a fruit topping, maybe mango? Mango would compliment them well, but I'm not sure about how to go about a mango topping.

I definitely want to try this again, so I'm including all my notes here. Hopefully next time I'll get all the way to tasty tasty.

My base starting point was The Fanny Farmer Cookbook, griddlecake recipe. I added the granola mix and increased the amount of milk because the batter was way too thick.

3/4 - 1 cups of milk
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 egg
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup Udi's Hawaiian granola (chop large pieces of macadamia & pineapple before adding to batter)

Beat milk, butter & egg lightly in mixing bowl. Mix flour, baking powder, sugar & salt and add all at once to the first mixture, stir just enough to combine. Add granola mix, stiring in gently, do not over mix.

Using 1/4 cup scoop drop mix onto medium heat non-stick skillet. Cook about 1 1/2 minutes per side, until lightly browned. (My mix was so thick that I did not see much bubbling like I normally would with a pancake. Instead when they were ready to turn the cake would start to get taller.)

I got a yield of 9 (3 1/2 inch) pancakes.