Pancakes are special occasion food in my house 🙂
I make them only once or twice a year, usually on someone's birthday or the morning after a holiday.
So when I DO make them.... you know they have to be fabulous!
This Monday was my 29th birthday... so I celebrated in style with some Blueberry Oatmeal Buttermilk pancakes!
I typically just make classic fluffy pancakes with flour & milk, but I happened to have some leftover buttermilk in the fridge, so I decided to try my hand at buttermilk pancakes.
Buttermilk is a soured/fermented milk product that looks (and tastes) kind of like runny super-tangy plain yogurt. It is made by culturing milk with lactic acid bacteria, which thickens the milk and gives it a tangy sour taste. It also gives the pancakes a richer flavor and fluffier texture than just milk, and provides an acid to help leaven your pancakes when it reacts with the baking soda.
*If you want to learn more about the difference between the different soured milk products (buttermilk, yogurt, kefir, sour cream, creme fraiche) check out this awesome article from KQED.*
So anyways, besides trying to use up my buttermilk in the fridge, I also wanted to give my pancakes a little more fiber & heft.
During the holidays I do this by adding flaxseed & pumpkin to my pancakes, but this time I wanted to try something different.
Enter, oatmeal!
Rolled oats are the perfect addition to pancakes, especially the thinly rolled quick-cooking oats. They soak up the liquid in the pancake batter and get nice and tender, so you add some fiber to your pancakes without even noticing a change in texture.
By adding oatmeal AND blueberries, I had a nice hit of fiber & nutrients that made the pancakes delicious & slightly more nutritious.
Noms.
I think these would also be delicious with raspberries, strawberries, banana, or even chocolate chips 😉 The sky's the limit!
Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 ⅓ cup unbleached all purpose flour
- ⅔ cup quick-cooking (1 minute) oats
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 2 cups buttermilk
- ⅓ cup milk
- ¼ cup melted butter, slightly cooled
- 1 cup blueberries, plus extra for serving
- Maple syrup, for serving
Instructions
- In a large bowl, stir together the flour, oats, sugar, baking soda, and salt until well mixed.
- In a separate medium bowl, beat the 2 eggs until smooth. Then whisk in the buttermilk, milk, and melted butter.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients & stir just enough to combine. It’s okay if there are still a few lumps. Overmixing = dense un-fluffy pancakes. Gently stir in the fresh blueberries and set aside for a few minutes to let the oats soak up some of the liquid.
- Add a little bit of ghee (clarified butter) or vegetable oil to a large nonstick skillet or griddle. Warm over medium-low heat until melted. Scoop ⅓ cup of batter into the pan for each pancake, taking care not to crowd the pan (I could only fit 3 pancakes per batch).
- Let the pancakes cook on the first side for about 2-3 minutes, until the edges start to firm up and bubbles form in the pancake that leave a hole when they pop (they don’t refill immediately with batter).
- Carefully flip the pancake and let cook another minute or so on the second side, until golden & the pancake is cooked through. Remove to a plate, add more butter or oil to the pan if needed, and repeat the process until all of the batter is gone. Serve with fresh blueberries and real maple syrup.
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