Pimpin' out Pancakes

This morning, I woke up craving some over the top delicious, but different pancakes. I had all sorts of ideas going through my head... one in particular was banana walnut pancakes. Never before have I experimented with pancakes; either I have been to scary about the possible results or didn't have ingredients to play around or the time. Well, today, I decided to experiment with my pancakes, and I'm so glad I did!

First, I like the fact that "pimpin out pancakes" needs no rhyme or reason. I literally made a batch of Aunt Jemima pancake mix and grabbed all my fixings to just throw in it. Now, my family is very traditional when it comes to making pancakes, so I dare not experiment with their Sunday breakfast. So I made their pancakes first, and then I played around with mine.

To prepare, I sliced some very ripe and soft bananas into thin chunks, and then I cut those thin circles into semi-circles. I added some walnuts (I had some left over from my banana fosters recipe) to my cut bananas, and just stirred it around to make them evenly mixed. After I poured a couple of spoonfuls of the pancake mixture into my hot pan, I sprinkled the banana/walnut mixture on top, and then topped it off with more pancake mixture. Once I saw the bubbles in the pancake mixture (a sure sign it's ready to flip), I flipped it over. Be careful if you try this, the pancake is really heavy, so you can make it quite messy if you don't go slowly and take your time during the flip. It cooks really quickly, so a couple of flips, and you are done. I always put my butter on each pancake as soon as it comes off the pan, so the butter can melt (yummy).

I had some bananas left, and some chocolate chips, so I made some banana chocolate chip pancakes next. I did the same thing, spooned some pancake mixture on my hot skillet first, and then sprinkled with my semi-circle bananas and chocolate chips and topped it off with more pancake mixture. WARNING: Chocolate chips melt very quickly, if you didn't already know that, so you have to be quick! I learned that the hard way; while trying to wait for my bubbles to come through, I noticed some of the melted chocolate had started to cook in the pan through the pancake mixture. I think a good way to combat this is to wait until that bottom layer cooks completely, hence those air bubbles start popping through, and then throw the chocolate chips on top, so that way they won't slide down between the wet mixture and cook on the pan itself. And that way you can flip it quickly, and move not mess up the integrity of the pancake.

At this point, I couldn't find anything else I'd be willing to try. There was some ice cream topping stuff, that I considered for a split second, but by this time, I knew two experimental pancakes was probably enough, considering I didn't know how they were going to taste. So I decided just to make the last little mixture left as a regular plain-o pancake, lol.

Sat down to take a bite out of my creations, and WHOA...

I should've tried this a long time ago! Especially the banana walnut pancakes! At first, the texture threw me off, cause the bananas were a little slimy and the walnuts were firm and crunchy, but overall, the combination was really good! Now the chocolate chip banana ones were interesting as well, but I liked the banana walnut ones alot more! After eating them both, I gave Devin my plain-o pancake (he was on his fourth one by then...what am I going to do with this growing boy!!) so I was plenty satisfied with the two I had. Just wish I would've been more confident and made two, cause it left me wanting more!

I didn't get a chance to take any pics because my batteries were dead, but I highly recommend being imaginitive with your pancakes next time you have time. I found some tips online to help you next time you cook your pancakes:

• Stir the batter with a whisk or fork just until dry ingredients are blended. The batter will be lumpy.
• Overmixing the batter will make the pancakes or waffles tough.
• Use a heavy frying pan or griddle for pancakes.
• Preheat the griddle in advance, the griddle or waffle iron is hot enough when drops of water sprinkled on surface will dance.
• Too cool a griddle produces flat, tough pancakes.
• Too hot a griddle causes outside of pancakes to brown before center is cooked.
• Cook pancakes until top side is full of bubbles; turn to do other side.
• Batter that is too thin will result in flat pancakes.
• Batter that is too thick won’t spread on griddle.
• Turn pancakes only once during cooking.
• Make big batches of pancakes & waffles to freeze the extra for quick & easy breakfasts.
• Extra batter can also be refrigerated.

If you have any ideas on how to pimp out your pancakes, please share! I'd love to try experimenting more with it!