Almond Oats Buttermilk Pancake

Almond Oats Buttermilk Pancake with Cherry Syrup and Salted Caramel Ice-cream

It feels like I have been away from this blog forever. Life has a way of getting in the way of the best made plans. This past week for me has been about handling change. I have had to put a lot of time into coming up with new plans. Thankfully, everything seems better at this point.

On Monday night though, I felt crap. When I feel crap, I often reach for food. I know some people might say that emotional eating is a dangerous thing. I agree. It is a slippery slope that can lead to trouble. For one night only though, I needed to self soothe with food. This led me to make buttermilk pancakes from scratch for dinner. The fluffiness of American style pancakes scares people from making it from scratch. The fluffiness is what has spurned a whole industry of pancake mix. This pancake recipe came out perfectly fluffy, even after freezing it, defrosting and cooking.


I have to say that one of the bright spot of this week has been the food that I have produced. As much as eating is soothing, cooking is a remedy as well. By focusing on one thing and getting it right, I feel like I can focus on other things and get it just right as well. I have cooked so much this week. I made one of the most complicated recipes I have in while, lasagna. I will hopefully put up a recipe for that soon. Every time something came out just right, it was another validation that life was going to fine in no time.

As with everything that I cook, this pancake recipe came about because of the things I had in the house that I needed to utilize. I had almond nut pulp from making almond milk, buttermilk from making from fried chicken (yes, buttermilk has a long shelf life in the fridge) and cherries that I had bought in bulk on a sale. These elements together came out as a decadent pancake dinner topped with home-made cherry jam/syrup and salted caramel ice-cream. I had tons of leftover batter that I froze. This morning I had the pancakes with a twist by adding in dark chocolate shavings.

I should point out that this pancake batter by itself is actually pretty healthy. There is not a lot of sugar added to it. The presence of the almond and oatsmeal means that there is a lot of fiber that will help with long term satiety. I felt so proud of myself when I realized this on Monday because I really wanted to pig out. By adding in the healthy elements into the batter, I was able to moderate the impact of the sweet cherry syrup and the fully luxurious ice-cream toppings.

Before I put up the recipe, I should note that I know that not everyone is going to have almond nut pulp in their fridge. In that case, you can soak some almonds in the cold water for at least an hour. Drain the almonds and blend them with the milk. You will actually get a much richer almond taste this way. The other alternative is to add in almond flour. Also, I will put the recipe for the home-made cherry sauce next. Let me know how it goes if you try the recipe.

Almond Oats Buttermilk Pancake

1 Cup of Oatsmeal
1.5 Cup of White Flour
2 Cup of Almond Pulp*
1 Tsp of Baking Soda
1 Tsp of Baking Powder
1 Cup of Buttermilk
1 Cup of Whole Milk
2 Tbsp of Sugar
.5 Tsp of Salt
1 Tsp of Vanilla Extract
2 Tbsp of Butter
4 Small Eggs or 2 Large Eggs

*The almond pulp can be substituted with 1cup of raw almond nuts soaked in water or 1 cup of almond flour.

Instructions
1. Blend the oatsmeal into a fine powder in  food processor and transfer to a bowl. Combine all the dry ingredients with the powdered oatsmeal.
2. Combine all wet ingredients including the eggs and mix to blend completely. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and whisk. Do not over mix the batter. It okay to have tiny lumps. Let the batter seat for at 20 minutes before cooking. I like to rest my oatsmeal pancake better.
3. Add a little bit of butter to a heated non-stick pan or griddle. When butter bubbles, add in 1/2 cup of batter to cook. Cook the first side until the pancake surface is covered in opened bubbles and then turn over to cook the other side.
4. Transfer to a warm plate to serve. Enjoy.

Chocolate Almond Oats Buttermilk Pancake with Cherry Syrup

Bonus: Chocolate Almond Oats Buttermilk Pancake

1. Make the pancake batter has instructed above. Add in 1/4 cup of finely shaved 85% dark chocolate to the batter to get a chocolate flavor. Cook as normal.