Snow Day = No School Day Recipe – Make Chocolate Pancakes Recipe Day with Kids!

MINNEAPOLIS Temperature:

http://www.weather.com/weather/today/55404:4:US retrieved February 21, 2014.

-9 degrees F Feels like -11 degrees F (-23.9 C)

http://www.manuelsweb.com/temp.htm Retrieved for Fahrenheit/Celsius Conversions February 21, 2014.

No worries! Eat Pancakes!

6:48 a.m. February 21, 2014 Minneapolis After the Overnight Snow Storm

RECIPE FOR A SNOW DAY

If you wonder about my recent post about the Great Lakes Freezing over, wonder no more about the truth of it. While the rest of the world is having unprecedented high temperatures, Minnesotans and most likely our northern neighbors, the Canadians, are experiencing the same “Cold weather records”. (HMMMM? What do you make of that, eh?) Minnesotans are now reputed to be, on the Internet, as either the “toughest people or the dumbest for living in such an extreme climate.

6:48 a.m. Minneapolis Snow Storm View out my door

Waxing nostalgic about surviving a winter is remembering the things you did to brighten your days. With that in mind, here’s recipe for chocolate pancakes for a Snow Day with the kids or with whomever. I fiddled around – experimented in stages to create this small batch recipe.

Chocolate Pancake Recipe with Chocolate Sauce

Serves 2 people

Ingredients

1 cup unbleached flour

1 teaspoon of whole-wheat flour

¼ teaspoon of paprika

¼ teaspoon ginger

1 pinch of cardamom

½ teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon baking powder

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

1 tablespoon fine baking sugar

½ ounce of Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate grated

1 cup of milk

Canola oil

Plain yogurt

The topping:

½ ounce of Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate

1/2 ounce of Baker’s semi-sweet chocolate for melting

½ tablespoon butter, margarine or Earth Balance

½ teaspoon sugar

Water

The Method

Combine all the dry ingredients with a fork or a whisk in a small bowl. Grate ½ ounce of chocolate and set aside. Combine the milk with the dry ingredients. Add milk slowly with the ingredients to avoid making the batter runny. Batter should be not too thick or too runny. Do not beat, but make sure the ingredients are well combined. Gently stir grated chocolate into the batter.

Chocolate Pancake Batter
© CKatt

Prepare a cast iron pan with canola oil – two tablespoon. Heat the oil on a low heat. Spoon the batter onto the pan to make small “Silver Dollar Pancakes” – 2 full teaspoons for each cake. Watch the bubbles begin to form on the top and flip before there are lots of bubbles. Because of the sugar in the recipe, the edges and the cakes can burn easily. (Watch carefully!)

Add canola oil if pan becomes dry in between cakes – less is more. The first cakes are usually not the best. (But they were still tasty.) Taste testing the first ones led me to add the grated chocolate and sugar.

Grated Chocolate added to the batter © CKatt

Keep the cooked pancakes covered on a plate to stay warm.

The Chocolate Sauce Recipe

In a very small pan, on low heat melt the ½ ounce of chocolate and tablespoon of butter stirring constantly. Add a teaspoon of water to thin the mixture; continue stirring then add about ½ teaspoon of sugar. When the mixture thickens add another teaspoon of water or so, to make the chocolate mixture into a sauce – not too thin.

Chocolate Sauce for Chocolate Pancakes © CKatt

Assembly

Place 2-3 pancakes on a small plate. Put spoonfuls of yogurt on top. Next layer chocolate on top. Substitute whipped cream for yogurt for a decadent dessert-like treat.

Plated Chocolate Pancakes with Yogurt & Chocolate Sauce © CKatt

Okay that was yummy. What a way to start a SNOW Day!

Suggestion: have the kids help make this. Supervised, of course.

Enjoy!

The food blogger The Novice Gardener invited me to post this on Fiesta Friday #4. Check out the potluck recipes from other food bloggers. They look truly scrumptious.