I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that pancakes can be like oatmeal. I know quite well how to top a bowl of oats and create a huge variety of concoctions, from pumpkin pie to peanut butter and jelly. But pancakes (ooh, and probably waffles, too!) can be just as versatile, in much the same way! The only crucial key is making sure you keep the right balance between wet and dry ingredients, and the sky’s the limit!

So I took out our trusty copy of The Joy of Cooking and found the base pancake recipe…

Dry ingredients: 1.5 cups flour, 3 tablespoons sugar, 1.75 tablespoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt.
Wet ingredients: 1.5 cups milk (I used skim), 3 tablespoons melted butter, 2 eggs, 0.5 teaspoon vanilla.

So far, so good. Keeping in mind the idea of “mix your own,” I separated the sifted-together dry ingredients into three separate bowls (Eric wasn’t home tonight, so this was just to be for me and my kids). Then I added equal amounts of the mixed-together liquids to each bowl.

At this point, after stirring wet into dry, Gabe’s bowl was ready to go, since he didn’t want anything in his actual pancakes. Sam wanted chopped bananas and dates, so I added those to his bowl and let them rest in the liquids while I cooked Gabe’s pancakes (Joy suggested that step). After the fruit had rested in the milk for a bit, I stirred his and cooked them.

My bowl was more interesting. To my bowl, I added: 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tablespoon Kahlua, a splash of extra vanilla, and, after stirring the rest, two tablespoons of part-skim ricotta cheese. I wanted the ricotta to stay mostly unmixed, so that I could mimic the separate cheese layer in a dish of tiramisu.

Then I cooked.

They look like chocolate pancakes, and they’re delicious. But the best part…

See that hunk of ricotta? Soft, creamy BLISS.

So! Go forth and make your own pancakes! The world is your oyster! I’m glad I started with these. (Oh, and – yeah, one-third of the recipe from Joy is quite the caloric hit. It made six good-sized pancakes. You probably don’t need all six…but I won’t tell on you if you don’t tell on me!)

Per tiramisu pancake (plain and banana-date pancakes are different!) – Fat: 3g; Carbohydrates: 14g; Calories: 96; Protein: 3g.