Pancake Mini Muffins

What the heck is a pancake muffin? Well since for some reason I am on a kick of making other items into muffins ( the Doughnut Muffins I made a while ago) that I thought HEY! Why not make pancake muffins. My kid loves blueberry pancakes ( ok so do I ) and I usually take one and cut up into pieces but I thought why not take my blueberry buttermilk pancake recipe, bake it in my mini muffin pan and see if they bake up nice like a pancake and be bite size ( or several bites for an 18 month old)

They TOTALLY worked. 

My recipe is a little "healthier" than some pancake recipes. I try to keep my day to day diet clean and healthy with whole foods, no preservatives, additives, box mixes etc. So I always use whole wheat pastry flour for half if not all of the flour in a recipe. I love it because its a finer grind than just regular whole wheat so it doesn't weigh down baked goods and make them dense and gooey. Keeps things light and fluffy. I also use Sucanat ( sugar cane natural) instead of white refined sugar, which is a more natural sugar. I am a mean mom and don't feed sweets to my kid ( no she doesn't get any of the cakes, cookies or cupcakes I make!) so when I made things like muffins or pancakes I want them to be low sugar and only natural sugar. 

I also used frozen blueberries this time. All out of the fresh - we ate them all!!

All the dry ingredients in a bowl, then whisked to combine together

The wet ingredients about to get whisked

Dry meets wet ingredients and just mixed to combine. Just like cakes and muffins, don't over mix. 

I used my mini pan for this recipe. I love this pan it makes 24 mini muffins instead of 12.

I used vegetable spray ( instead of liners since these are pancakes and not really muffins)

and I loaded them up with blueberries

They puffed up nicely like muffins

Served up with some maple syrup dipping sauce! YUMMY!!

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancake Recipe

Adapted from Cooking Light magazine

This recipe makes kick ass pancakes I just made them into muffins but I make them as pancakes all the time too!!

Ingredients

• 1/2  cup  all-purpose flour
• 1  cup  whole wheat pastry flour ( or you can use all whole wheat flour)
• 3  tablespoons sucanat (if you cant find you can use regular white sugar)
• 1 1/2  teaspoons  baking powder
• 1/2  teaspoon  baking soda
• 1/4  teaspoon  salt
• 1 1/2  cups  low-fat buttermilk
• 1  tablespoon  unsweetened apple sauce
• 1  large egg
• 1  large egg white
• Cooking spray
• 3/4  cup  maple syrup
• 3  tablespoons  butter ( optional for pancakes not muffins
• 1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen. If using frozen don't thaw before combining)

Preparation

Lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Combine buttermilk, applesauce, egg, and egg white, stirring with a whisk; add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.
Heat a nonstick griddle or nonstick skillet coated with cooking spray over medium heat. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter per pancake onto griddle. Plop down a few blueberries and spread the batter over the top of them. Turn pancakes over when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked. Serve with syrup and butter.

For Muffins - spray a mini muffin pan with cooking spray, fill muffin tins halfway, plop in some blueberries, and add a little more batter on top to fill up the muffin cup. Bake at 350  10-12 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. You can make these regular muffin size too. Since I didn't make them regular size I don't know how long to bake them for.