Want to know what is a staple in our freezer?? These guys! Cali would have pancakes every morning if I let her. Wait a second…she does. Sometimes it’s with peanut butte and syrup, sometimes just syrup, other times cold straight from the fridge, and now that she has mastered the microwave, occasionally a slightly warm one with nothing on it. Ava on the other hand thinks she want a pancake every morning, takes one bite, and leaves the rest for cutting with a knife (a.k.a., making a total mess including crumbs on the floor, chair, and counter, smeared pieces under her bum, and nice moist pieces on her fingers and mouth.) Get the picture:)

I believe I’ve posted about this before, but most of my favorite pancake, other quick breads, yeast breads and rolls come from this magazine I bought over a year ago, Cooking Light Best Baking Recipes. This particular pancake recipe calles for all-purpose flour plus whole-wheat flour. You can substitute the two by just using whole wheat pastry flour, which is what I will do on occasion. Some of you may not like using white flour and prefer just whole wheat, but if you go the route of only whole wheat, your pancake will come out mighty dense! The recipe also contains canola oil. I try to avoid canola and vegetable oil as much as possible. For baking purposes I will substitute these oils with coconut oil. Although if you do not like the taste of coconut you can always use butter. The REAL kind. A little fat never hurts and if you’re worried about the calories, it’s very minimal. I would always prefer butter to canola or vegetable oil. Let’s do a little reading up on these oils…

Unlike butter or coconut oil, these vegetable oils can’t be extracted just by pressing or separating naturally. They must be chemically removed, deodorized and altered. These are some of the most chemically altered foods in our diets, yet they get promoted as healthy.

Vegetable oils are manufactured in a factory, usually from genetically modified crops that have been heavily treated with pesticides. This article has fascinating videos contrasting the production of vegetable oils and butter.

Take for instance, the common Canola oil, the beauty queen of the vegetable oil industry. It was developed by making a hybrid version of the rapeseed, and it was given its name in the 1980s as part of a marketing effort organized by a conference on mono-saturates.

Rapeseed oil contains high amounts of the toxic erucic acid, which is poisonous to the body. Canola oil is an altered version, also called Low Erucic Acid Rapeseed (LEAR) and it is commonly genetically modified and treated with high levels of pesticides.

Canola (modified rapeseed oil) is produced by heating the rapeseed and processing with a petroleum solvent to extract the oil. Then another process of heat and addition of acid is used to remove nasty solids (wax) that occur during the first processing.

At this point, the newly created canola oil must be treated with more chemicals to improve color and separate the different parts of the oil. Finally, since the chemical process has created a harsh smelling oil, it must be chemically deodorized to be palatable.

If the vegetable oil is going to be made into shortening or margarine, is undergoes an additional process called hydrogenation to make it solid at cold temperatures. Unlike saturated fats (butter, coconut oil, etc) vegetable oils are not naturally solid at these temperatures and must be hydrogenated to accomplish this. During this process of hydrogenation, those lovely trans fats we’ve heard so much about are created. (Taken from Wellness Mama)

Well I don’t know about you, but I’ll stick to my butter and coconut oil to use instead!!

Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes

3.4 ounces all-purpose flour (about 3/4 cups)

3.6 ounces whole-wheat flour (about 3/4 cups)

3 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk

1 tablespoon coconut oil or butter

1 large egg

1 large egg white

Weigh or lightly spoon flours into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flours, sugar, and next 3 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. This allows for the dry mix to become light and airy. Combine buttermilk, oil, egg, and eggwhite, stirring with a whisk. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

Heat a nonstick griddle or nonstick skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with coconut cooking spray or butter. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter per pancake onto griddle. Turn pancakes over when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked.

Serve immediately or lay on a cooling rack while the remaining batter is cooked.