Twinkle's Kitchen | Olive Oil Pancakes

Pancakes are a perfect food. Adding a fluffy batch of these to your menu can turn a boring breakfast into a fabulous brunch.

I love cooking pancakes because of their flexibility. They are a blank canvas awaiting a brush filled with berries, apples, bananas – even savory flavors. The possibilities are limitless.

The downside of pancakes is they can be unhealthy. But let’s flip that thought, switch out a few ingredients and create a healthier, tastier flapjack.

Since you can easily experiment with pancakes, you don’t want to change the baking powder or flour measurements, but you can switch out other ingredients.

Olive oil in place the melted butter or canola oil is a great example. And you can definitely mix all purpose and wheat flour, or even switch out rolled oats for part of the flour all together. Just remember, your measurements need to basically remain the same for your base –flour, baking powder, liquid.

Don’t be fooled that extra sugar is involved just because it says “caramelized.” The apples, when they hit the pan or griddle, do this on their own with their own sugars. It not only looks amazing, but it also tastes phenomenal.

Caramelized Apple & Olive Oil Pancakes
Serves 6-8

2 cups rolled oats
2 cups unsweetened almond milk
1/3 cup honey
¼ cup olive oil
2 eggs
1 cup whole wheat pastry flour
2 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. sea salt
2 tbs. vanilla extract
3-4 apples, sliced into half moons

First, soak the oats in the almond milk in a large bowl for about 15-20 minutes.

In another small bowl, blend the honey, eggs and olive oil.

Sift together the dry ingredients ¬– flour, spices, salt.

Once the oats have soaked, mix together with the egg and olive mix.

Slowly add in the flour mixture about ¼ cup at a time until the batter just comes together.

Stir in your vanilla right at the end.

Heat your griddle to about 300 degrees Fahrenheit, or heat a pan on medium to medium high heat. I prefer a griddle because I can cook more at a time.

Pour your batter onto the griddle, about ½ cup, and swirl your ladle to make it even and circular. It should be about 4-5 inches in diameter.

Press in five apple slices into a star pattern.

When you see the batter becoming bubbly, try lifting the edges a bit. You’ll know it’s ready to flip once the cake doesn’t want to pull apart when you try to move it. The apples should also be cooked in enough so they don’t fall out of the batter.

Flip and cook for about one minute on that side, or when the center of the pancake is springy to the touch.

Flip over onto a plate and place a small pat of butter in the center. The apples should be slightly browned.

Serve with warm maple syrup or hot berry compote.

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Twinkle VanWinkle was born in a small town in Mississippi. A life-long lover of music, media and food, she grew up following those three things along her path. She has almost 20 years of professional cooking under her apron strings, feeding thousands of friends, family and other folks while working in restaurants and bakeries in Oxford, Miss. She baked 300 apple pies for the “Oprah Winfrey Show” and appeared on “The Best Of...” in the same year. Along with producing dynamic entertainment content for LIN Media, she is a mother, musician and social media fanatic.

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