Week 15: Whole Wheat Brown Sugar Banana Bread Pancakes!

Epic.  The word I'm going to use to describe these pancakes I made this past weekend.  So epic that I'm going to write about them before I do my weekly recap.

Whole wheat brown sugar banana bread pancakes.

I was sold on banana bread.  I may be the weirdest person alive.  I like banana bread, but nothing else made with bananas or even bananas by themselves.

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2/3 cup milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

3 large ripe bananas, mashed

2 tablespoons butter, melted

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl. Measure out the milk and add the vanilla extract to it. Whisk together the dry ingredients and add in milk and vanilla, stirring to combine. The mixture will still be dry. Add in mashed bananas and mix. Add in melted butter and stir until batter is somewhat smooth.

Heat a skillet or grilled on medium heat. Using a 1/3 cup measure, spoon batter into rounds and cook until bubbles form on top – about 2-3 minutes. Flip and cook for a minute or two more. Repeat with remaining batter. Serve hot with butter and syrup.

Note: if you don’t have/can’t find whole wheat pastry flour, use 1 cup of regular whole wheat and 1 cup of all purpose. Or 2 cups of all purpose.

There was the option to use a vanilla maple glaze over the top of the pancakes, but I'm a syrup person myself.  Maple syrup and cinnamon butter were good for me.  

Everyone enjoyed these.  The batter made us exactly 8 pancakes, even though it called for 12.  It was a perfect amount for my husband, myself, and Sean.  A few strips of bacon and we were happier than pigs in mud.  Okay...horrible analogy considering I also used the word bacon in the same sentence.

So, now that you're all drooling, I'll bore you with the weekly recap.

We had a pretty uneventful week.  Scott had parent-teacher conferences, I had a curriculum planning day with my foreign language department colleagues, our washing machine was repaired while still under warranty, and the rain + Bailey going in and out put a damper on my freshly cleaned house that our cleaning lady did wonders on this week.

Saturday, we started our day off with those amazing pancakes.  Sean had gymnastics that Scott took him to.  I took Evan to Troy to meet up with a good friend and her daughter, Brielle at Somerset for some shopping and lunch.  You can't go wrong with a dreary day, a trip to the mall where I finally treated myself to some new clothes, and a burger and fries from J. Alexander's.  To top that off, I went to a Gender Reveal Party for one of my oldest childhood friends who was in town.  It was like a trip down memory lane showing up to her mom and step-dad's house.

I hadn't seen her in years, so it was great to re-connect and share in her special day.  She put the

whole thing together and it was beautiful!  

I came home and spent the last hour or so together with my family before it was time to put the boys to bed.

Sunday, we had a rough morning with Evan.  Despite him sleeping in until 8am, he was mega cranky until he had his first morning nap.  Which, ended up taking a dosage of baby Tylenol to get him to calm down enough to take that nap.  I honestly thought we'd end up in urgent care assuming his ear infection still hadn't cleared up, but after his nap he was in a dandy mood.  So, Scott and I stuck to our plans of meeting up with our good friends Kristen and Jeff at Lucky Strike in Novi to celebrate Kristen's birthday.

Let me just say...going out in the afternoon and having some beers and chicken nachos AND playing arcade games was like heaven on earth.  Seriously.  I felt so young again!

We came back home to my dad playing with the boys while my mom put together an amazing dinner.  Steaks, red skin potatoes, broccoli casserole....yum!  It was a nice evening with my parents!

On to another week....man how time flies!