These pancakes are 100% healthy and 100% delicious! No refined flours or processed sugars so you can feel good eating them!
Pancakes are a big deal around this house so when someone tells me that they don’t know how to make pancakes from scratch I am always shocked. If you have been making bagged mixes for years today is the day it stops friends! Trust me it is sooo easy you will wonder why it took you so long!
Plus I will even show you how to make pancake mix from this base recipe so you can whip these up any day of the week! Really the only difference in making pancakes from scratch is the savings to your pocketbook and maybe an extra 3 minutes if you mix them up each time.
Kevin was adamant that our children would not be picky eaters and we have done our best to get them eating a wide variety of foods. Before he was old enough to know better Noah ate everything from curry to calamari and loved almost everything. Then around 18 months he realized he could exert his will over what he did and didn’t eat on his plate and has become a pickier eater.
We get asked a lot about how to help a picky eater eat more and this is our opinion: we want him to love his food and cooking but ultimately what he likes to eats is his choice. We continue to offer new and exciting foods as much as we can and he has to take an “adventure bite” of each thing on his plate which is pretty much a non issue around here since he is so used to it. From that point on we do not force the issue….he eats what he wants.
We do our best to keep his options filled with healthy choices and reserve treats and sugar for special occasions. You may be thinking, what the heck does this have to do with pancakes? Well these pancakes are one of the foods I don’t have to ever encourage Noah to eat, he eats them almost as fast as I can make them.
And I feel great about having them in his breakfast mix because of the changes we have made to make this a healthy pancake recipe. We swap out the regular flour for spelt flour, an ancient grain that avoids some of the issues of todays wheat. I feel much better when I eat it and thus feel better feeding it to my family than the all the new hybrids and genetically modified strains of wheat grown today.
A smidge of honey replaces the white sugar adding a host of health benefits instead of just empty calories. Then we top them with real butter and real maple syrup which is, in moderation, great for you due to its antioxidant rich properties. This is a far cry from the processed white flour, white sugar pancake mix in a bag topped with fake colored corn syrup “syrup”. Paired with an egg and maybe some bacon, I love feeding my family these healthy pancakes!
You can make a single batch with this recipe or head over to our tutorial on how to make pancake mix to whip up a bigger batch to use for multiple mornings. Score!
- 1 cup spelt flour (can sub any flour but we love spelt!)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 beaten egg
- 1 cup buttermilk or sour milk
- 1 tablespoon honey (sugar works too in a pinch)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (or melted butter)
- Cooking spray or extra oil to grease griddle
- Combine all dry ingredients.
- Combine wet ingredients.
- Add wet mixture all at once to dry ingredients and stir until just moistened. Batter will be lumpy, do not attempted to smooth it completely or you will toughen pancakes. If too lumpy add additional buttermilk 2 tablespoons at a time until desired consistency.
- Preheat griddle or large skillet over medium-high heat with small amount of oil or spray with cooking spray. Preheat oven on warm (170-190 degrees) and place a heat safe plate within oven.
- I always ruin the first batch of pancakes so do a test pancake to get your heat right! You want it to be hot enough to get a nice crisp but not so hot that the outside cooks before the inside is ready.
- Pour or spread ¼ cup batter into approx 3 inch circle for regular sized pancakes.
- When bubbles begin to pop on top of pancakes use a flat spatula (plastic if using non-stick) to flip the pancakes.
- Cook to golden brown and remove.
- Hold finished pancakes warm in oven while you finish.
Recipe adapted from The Joy Of Cooking.
Hi Dani!
I was looking for a pancake recipe from scratch. I found your website and made your pancakes. I have tried other scratch pancake recipes and this is THE BEST recipe by far!!! In fact, my boys each ate 4 (I had to double the batch)! This is MY GO TO PANCAKE RECIPE. Thank you so much for sharing it! I look forward to trying your other whole food recipes.
Take care,
Heather
Heather!
You totally made my night. Thanks so much for taking the time to comment and let me know this! It’s great to track how many times something is shared or pinned but it’s comments like yours that keep me inspired to keep this blog going.
Thank you!! Have a wonderful morning!
Dani
Love to make pancakes from scratch. Can’t remember when I didn’t make them like this. However, my grandkids think they like the old white flour best. I have sneaked in a little whole wheat and didn’t tell them. I LOVE Spelt!! I just made apple cinnamon muffins Monday with Spelt. They were great!!!
Ohh those muffins sound amazing Charlotte!! I like spelt for sneaking in too. It’s natural sugar content is much higher than whole wheat so its easier to do a one over on the kiddos 😉
I loved all your fantastic photos! I make from scratch as well. When our daughter was growing up, I would cook up several and freeze. They reheat wonderful! I wish everyone would get away from packaged processed foods. It is the reason, for so many problems. I enjoyed my visit to your blog.
Thanks for visiting Kimberly! That’s a great idea with the pancakes!