Baked Pancakes - Pancakes in the oven in zero time!

I love pancakes. For real. Perfect pancakes are, well, perfect! The hubs makes amazing pancakes. Perfect shape. Perfect doneness. Beautiful.

But they take forever. With a kid, pancakes is a two man job. I take care of Little Bear and the hubs mans the stove top. One at a time, he puts together his perfect stack of pancakes. I set the table and get all the goods ready (butter, warm syrup, fruit) and as soon as the last jack is flapped, we eat. 30-45 minutes prep gets the full batch cooked to perfection. Not bad for a weekend breakfast but not so hot during the week.

I've tried other baked pancake/giant pancake recipes but they never seem quite right. This one from Six Sisters' Stuff is pretty darn wonderful.

Prep time is 10-15 minutes and then you bake it. Let it sit for 5 and you're ready to eat! That's it! Since pinning the recipe less than a week ago, I've made two batches and both have been fantastic! Both times I have tweaked the original recipe (added vanilla, wheat germ, cinnamon and/or whole wheat flour) and I was pretty happy with the both batches. Here is the best of the two.

Baked Pancakes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups milk

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons ground wheat germ

1/2 teaspoon salt

Cinnamon for sprinkling on the top

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray/grease a 9 x 13" baking pan.

In a large bowl, mix together the milk, butter, eggs and vanilla. 

Mix in the sugar, flour, baking powder, wheat germ and salt. 

Pour batter into the baking pan.

Sprinkle cinnamon over the top.

Cook for 25-30 minutes.

Let cool for 5 minutes, then cut into squares and serve.

The vanilla added a warm little bit of deliciousness and the cinnamon on the top blended well.

The next time I tried adding cinnamon to the batter as well as sprinkled on top. It ended up being a bit off but I think part of that was due to the decision to use whole wheat flour. I subbed in half whole wheat flour to see if I could healthy things up a bit more. They still turned out good but, like whole wheat pancakes vs. regular flour pancakes, the texture was different. The whole wheat ones were less smooth and more crumbly. Still delicious but not the buttery-melt-in-your-mouth kind that the first batch was. Each batch got us 2.5 morning's worth of delicious breakfast. Totally worth the wee bit of prep time that they take.

Enjoy!