vegan blueberry pancakes

(Recipe update: since the posting of this blog, I've experimented with different ingredients and now make these pancakes a little differently. I've noted the changes below with an *)

For my whole adult life, I have been making pancakes from a box. Don't get me wrong, they tasted good. But the real reason why I never tried making them from scratch was because I thought it would take too much effort. I know I sound really lazy, but before I knew about all the additives in processed foods, I didn't think taking the easy way out was so bad. How can you argue with "just add water." But now that I'm vegan, I can't depend on Aunt Jemima anymore.

The good news is, making pancake mix from scratch is actually really easy! I looked up a couple recipes online and they all have the same main ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, milk substitute, and oil. Each one had a little something different; some added spices like cinnamon or replaced the sugar with a fruit. I chose to use the following:

• 1 cup unbleached whole wheat flower
• 1 Tablespoon cane sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon iodized salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 Tablespoon ground flaxseed
• 1 cup almond milk
• 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil (*coconut oil in liquid form)
• 1 cup blueberries

First, I mixed the dry ingredients- flower, sugar, salt, baking powder, and flaxseed. Next, I added the Almond milk and vegetable oil (*if you are using coconut oil, rather than vegetable, zap the almond milk in the microwave for no more than 60 seconds. Having the milk at room temperature will keep the oil from solidifying.) Most recipes called for Soy milk but I'm tying to boycott Monsanto as much as possible so I went for the almond milk. Plus, I like the flavor. Once the batter is mixed, I added half the cup of blueberries and let it sit for 5 minutes. This is something momma D figured out and taught me. If you let the batter sit, the pancakes will come out fluffy. I oiled up the pan and ladled in the batter with the flame on low. With Aunt Jemima, I would look for bubbles to surface in the batter to know when to flip. That didn't happen with this batter. I timed about 3 minutes on each side but it's better to flip a couple times than to burn it. After dishing, they were topped off with the remaining fresh blueberries and syrup.

These pancakes are guilt free and are delish. I think next time I'll try it with banana :). This recipe only makes four good sized pancakes which is more than enough for me! But if you're cooking for a few, double the amount.