Yes, you read that right! I consider these health food! Who doesn’t love chocolate?
Ok, maybe calling these health food is a bit of a stretch, but they are way better than most breakfast cereals out there these days, which I hate.
Actually, I love to sneak a bowl of Corn Chex, plain Cheerios, or Grapenuts every once in a while if we happen to have them, but otherwise, they are my morning nemesis.
Seriously! As soon as the box is opened, I feel like it explodes all over the kitchen and family room, and I even find it in the basement.
All despite there being a “no food leaves the kitchen rule.”
Yes, I know. I need to work on rule enforcement.
But seriously, cereal is just asking for a huge mess. It’s like the food equivalent of glitter!
Another plus to making chocolate chip pancakes is you’ll feel no need for syrup! That’s another mess maker also filled with corn syrup that we try not to eat anyway.
It’s interesting because you would think that the chocolate might be messy, but aside from giving kids a face-wash after, we really don’t have mess issues.
Guess we just take chocolate too seriously around here to waste it!
Can you tell that I don’t like messes?
Actually, my house looks pretty crazy most of the time, so I’m always on the lookout for anything that can make my life a little easier and this is one of them: Chocolate Chip Pancakes!
So a few things to note about this chocolate chip pancake recipe.
First, I grind my own flour.
I’ve been doing this for years. I grew up grinding wheat and after I had been married several years I finally got a wheat grinder of my own.
I love grinding my own flour. The taste is so much different and fuller than using wheat flour from the grocery store.
I do suggest using hard white wheat. It works a lot better than hard red wheat, which I grew up using.
With the hard white, I can use it for just about everything: cakes, muffins, cookies, bread, biscuits, and rolls to name a few.
It’s still a little heavier than all-purpose flour, but in a good way, at least to me. 🙂
This is the grain mill I use if you want to check it out. Mine is a slightly older model since I’ve had it so long, but it still runs flawlessly and I love it.
Second thing to note about this recipe is that I switch off using olive oil and coconut oil, depending how hurried I am.
Coconut oil takes a little while to melt before adding it to the mixture (I don’t use the microwave if I can help it in our home), but I do like the flavor better when using it.
Olive oil isn’t bad though and will do if saving those few extra minutes matters to you.
Next, I use mini semi-sweet chocolate chips. I used to get the regular size and then chop them up, but then found the mini ones and realized that saved me a lot of work and still dispersed the chocolate nicely throughout the pancakes.
They also make great pancake snowman features and buttons when requested by your children (they request snowmen every time.)
I love to cook my pancakes on my electric griddle, similar to this one. You can make up a whole bunch of perfect pancakes on it in a hurry without having to use butter or spray.
This recipe was adapted from a recipe in Prevention’s Flat Belly Diet Cookbook. You can actually make a dry mix ahead of time and then make it up when needed.
I used to do that, but as my family’s grown, it’s usually just as fast to make it up when needed because I always have to double it and change things slightly.
As this recipe is, it makes about 2 dozen 4-inch pancakes. Sometimes more. Depends on how much flour and water I put in it that day.
I’ve been making this so long that I can easily adapt it quickly if I need more.
My three year old helps me out so often that he pretty much could tell you everything that goes in it!
I hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
'Healthy' Chocolate Chip Pancakes
Enjoy!