Makeover Monday: Whole Wheat Gingerbread Pancakes

The countdown to Christmas is now 6 days.  There are so many things that make Christmas a unique time of year.  The tree, stockings, lights, candy canes, etc.  And how many other holidays have their own songs?  Not to mention that Christmas is maybe the only day of the year when people actually look forward to morning.  Because you probably aren't going to be munching on celery sticks all day, you might as well get your day off to a healthy start.  

Enter, whole wheat gingerbread pancakes.  I have been wanting to make gingerbread cookies since I finished my turkey and pumpkin pie.  But with only a few days remaining before Christmas, it doesn't look like that's going to happen.  So I decided to make a breakfast version.  I used whole wheat flour, Splenda, applesauce instead of oil, and ground flax instead of an egg.  The flax seed was mostly because I was out of eggs, but it does cut out about 40 calories and adds some omega-3 fatty acids.  These were really yummy and festive.  And I got my gingerbread fix without the calories of a cookie.  

To make your Christmas morning extra special, combine whole wheat flour, Splenda brown sugar, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt.

Then whisk together milk, no sugar added applesauce, vanilla, flax seed, and water.  If you are using an egg, substitute that for the flax seed and water.

Stir together the wet and dry ingredients just until they are combined.

At this point, I did a little experimenting.  I wanted gingerbread man shaped pancakes.  So I poured the batter into a metal gingerbread man cookie cutter.  Not recommended for plastic cookie cutters!

I tried to remove the cookie cutter right after pouring the batter.  The batter just spilled out into an amorphous blob.  Then I poured the batter into the cookie cutter, let the pancake cook on one side, then flipped it with the cutter still around it.  That worked, but when it was done cooking, the pancake stuck on the cookie cutter.  That might have worked if I had greased the cookie cutter first. 

So I ended up just cutting gingerbread shapes out of regularly cooked pancakes.  I had some leftover butter rum syrup from my eggnog pancakes I made last week.  Actually, to be more accurate, this is a sauce I made but didn't share because the syrup was better (no lumps!).  And these were really good with this sauce, so they would be even better with the butter rum syrup!  Have a wonderful Christmas morning!

Whole Wheat Gingerbread Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 Tbsp Splenda brown sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1 Tbsp ground flax seed

3 Tbsp water

1 cup skim milk

2 Tbsp no sugar added applesauce

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

In a medium bowl, whisk together whole wheat flour, brown sugar, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt.

In a separate bowl, whisk together flax, water, milk, applesauce, and vanilla. 

Add milk mixture to flour mixture and stir just until combined.  Pour onto hot griddle using 1/4 cup scoop.  Cook until golden brown on both sides.