Carrot Cake Pancakes for a Birthday Boy

Today is my youngest son’s 10^th birthday. To celebrate he is having some friends over for the night, pizza and cake will be eaten by all. Or at least I hope all, because I have a large cake and I don’t want to have it sitting around calling my name to eat it. . .Ok, back on track, for this recipe I have tried adapting my mother in law’s recipe for carrot cake cookies into carrot cake pancakes. My son loves carrot cake and carrot cake cookies but it is not always so loved by most kids his age so we went with a chocolate cake and chocolate frosting for the party. This is my way of making him a special breakfast and giving him carrot cake. . . .

Ingredients needed:

2 cups of Bisquick or other pancake mix

1 large carrot – shredded

1 tablespoon of brown sugar

2 teaspoon of pure vanilla extract

1 tablespoon pure maple syrup

2 teaspoons of cinnamon

½ teaspoon of Nutmeg

½ teaspoon of ginger

¼ cup of buttermilk

Optional mix-in’s chopped walnuts, pecans or toasted coconut flakes

And water to thin out batter to desired consistency

shredding carrot

I start by shredding my carrot and setting it aside. Then in a bowl mix the pancake mix, sugar, and spices. To that add the vanilla, maple syrup and carrots and any additional mix-in’s such as chopped walnuts.  I then add the buttermilk as I mix. This can be done in your stand mixer but I do it by hand. The batter will be thick so after the buttermilk is added, begin to thin the batter with water to your desired consistency. I prefer thicker pancakes so I tend to add only about ½ a cup of water. 

To a hot buttered griddle pour your batter and watch for the batter to bubble. Once the batter is bubbling that is a sign to flip your pancake. 

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I top these with a mixture of cream cheese and whipped cream.  I use room temperature cream cheese, 2 tablespoons, and fold it into a pint of heavy cream that I whipped up with a teaspoon of fine sugar. For the calorie conscience you can use just cool whip free to top them and avoid the added fat grams but since this is a once in a while treat, I just give my boy the goods. 

Enjoy : )