Brownie Batter Pancakes

My life has been forever changed by these pancakes.  I seriously thought these Sweet Potato Pancakes were the end game for pancakes forever.  But now I see that they have been trumped.  Just to let you know, this is just my personal opinion because I will always (always!) be swayed by chocolate, so take this as you will.

A few months ago, when I knew I was going to take some time off, I pulled together a list of several recipes that I definitely wanted to try while I was on what I call "vacation".  Last week, I realized the list is only, maybe about 75 recipes long.  Um, I don't even have 75 days off.  Plus, at least 24 of those days were/will be spent on crutches.  Clearly that's not the optimal time to play around in the kitchen right next to open flames and a 350 degree oven.  That is akin to asking for a trip to the ER.  So anyhow, I got real and decided to pare this list down to the things that I really actually wanted to make.

Enter these brownie pancakes.  These were one of the first things I had pulled into my To-Make list and I had forgotten about them.  Um, no.  I needed to make these.  I pulled this recipe to the top of the list and got to work.

And before everyone starts freaking out about eating brownies for breakfast, please note that this can be made into a "skinny" recipe...aka 172 calories per serving, which happens to be the ENTIRE RECIPE.  No joke.  I don't joke about brownies.  Now, I didn't have all the required ingredients on hand, so my recipe will not have this many calories, so if you do want to pare things down a bit, I provided the link to the original recipe for ya.

Brownie Batter Pancakes

slightly adapted from Skinnytaste

makes 8 - 10 silver-dollar-size pancakes

Print Recipe

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon sugar (You can use less if you’re planning to top with syrup and don’t want the actual pancakes to taste sweet.)
• pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable (or canola) oil
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 5 1/2 tablespoons almond milk (I used vanilla flavored almond milk.  You can also use regular or skim milk.)
• cooking spray

1) Mix the dry ingredients together well.

2) Pour in the wet ingredients and combine until the mixture is smooth.

3) Place a saucepan that has been sprayed lightly with cooking spray over medium heat. and add the pancake batter in small dollops.  The batter will spread so you will need to make these in small batches of 3 or 4.

4) When the pancake has set on one side (you will see lots of bubbles on the uncooked side of the pancake), flip it over to cook on the other side.  It will take ~2-3 minutes per side.  You may need to reapply cooking spray in between batches if the pancakes begin to stick to the pan.

5) Remove cooked pancakes and set aside before making the next batch.

6) Sprinkle powdered sugar (or drizzle syrup) over pancakes before serving.

I'm freaking in love with these pancakes.  What do they taste like?  Brownies! I didn't even put any syrup on them.  I dusted them with powdered sugar, but you can add a side of chocolate syrup, if you're into that kind of thing.

This recipe only makes 1 serving, so I'm going to need to double this and then I will proceed to eat all the pancakes by myself.  But I'll eat them at noon and it'll be lunchtime and that will make it alright.  It will.  Really.