Last Friday morning, still snuggled in my bed, I suddenly had an intense desire for pancakes. But then I realized I had no flour. My rolling pantry (really a bunch of Elfa drawers from The Container Store) can only fit small packages of flour, and I’d used mine up to make these chocolate and ginger tarts. Whole wheat flour would’ve worked okay. But whole-wheat oatmeal pancakes… ugh, that sounded too dense. (Are you seeing what a picky person I am to live with?)
So I brainstormed alternative pancake flours. Garbanzo… no… semolina… no…. Maseca… hmmm. Yeah. Maseca is a corn flour that most people in Mexico use as a shortcut to make tortillas. I’d bought Maseca to make nicuatole, and it seemed like it was light enough to work in a pancake. To quote Crayton: What’s the worst that could happen?
Oatmeal and corn don’t sound like they go together, and I was expecting them to taste a little strange. But the pancakes actually turned out really well. They didn’t taste overwhelmingly of oatmeal, or of corn, instead rounding out into this generally hearty, grainy taste. I used a combination of plain yogurt and milk, which made them moist. And they were fluffy, too. I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Except maybe a mimosa.
Maple syrup seemed odd in this case, so I slathered them with butter and drizzled on honey. If you have any Maseca in your pantry that you’ve been wondering what to do with, this is a perfect recipe. I made them over the weekend for Crayton — okay, technically he made them, since I was on the phone with my mom — and they got his seal of approval.
Recipe below.
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