For years I’ve been making chocolate-chip pancakes for my kids.
Very much unlike the ones served in restaurants, my homemade pancakes are studded with plenty of chips, enough to satisfy the most fervent chocoholic. As my eldest daughter Pia once said, I can be generous with the chocolate chips because I don’t have to make a profit.
How true, but it’s also because I don’t see the point of making chocolate chip pancakes if there are only two or three desolate pieces of chocolate in them. The whole idea, after all, is to infuse the pancakes with the hearty flavor of chocolate.
With the recent trend toward combining sweet and salty flavors, I thought of adding something else to the pancakes—bacon! Usually bacon would be served as a side dish to pancakes, but in this recipe, I’ve incorporated the bacon into the pancakes. This gives the pancakes a balance of sweet and salty flavors, making them a truly delectable and trendy breakfast treat.
Try making these pancakes for Mother’s Day. It’s a bit tricky getting all the chips and bacon into the batter as you cook them, but with some practice and a few helping hands, you’ll get the hang of it. Though the pancakes don’t always come out perfectly round, they’ll still make a delicious start to a special day
Mother’s Day Pancakes
- 8 strips bacon
- 1 ½ c all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 2 eggs
- 1 tbsp melted butter
- 1 ½ c fresh milk
- ½-1 c semisweet chocolate chips
- 1 tbsp flour for the chocolate chips
- Nonstick cooking spray or 1 tbsp cooking oil
To serve:
Maple syrup or pancake syrup
Cook the bacon in a pan or in the microwave until crisp. Remove the bacon from the pan or microwave and pat dry with paper towels so excess oil gets absorbed. Cut into ½-inch strips and set aside.
Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder. Whisk in eggs, butter and milk and mix until blended but still slightly lumpy. Dust the chocolate chips lightly with the one-tablespoon flour.
If using a nonstick cooking spray, spray it on the surface of a skillet. If using cooking oil: lightly brush the surface of the skillet with cooking oil (use a pastry brush to do this).
Heat the skillet to medium-high heat. (The pan should be hot enough so the batter starts to get cooked immediately. See tips.)
Scoop about ¼ cup of the batter into a ladle. Add some bacon strips and chocolate chips into the batter on the ladle. Pour batter into the center of the heated skillet. See to it that the bacon and chocolate chips are distributed as evenly as possible around the batter (you may have to use the tip of a heat-proof spatula to move the chips and bacon around the batter). Let cook until bubbles form on the surface, the batter starts to solidify and the underside is a nice golden brown.
Flip the pancake over and cook until the other side turns a light golden brown. Do not overcook or the pancake will be dry and tough. Transfer the cooked pancake to a serving plate (see tips). Repeat with remaining batter, bacon and chocolate chips.
If desired, serve with maple or pancake syrup.
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Cook’s tips
To test if the skillet is hot enough, put a drop of batter on the side of the pan. If it sizzles, then the skillet is hot enough.
To keep the cooked pancakes warm: Before you start cooking the pancakes, heat a microwave-proof serving plate in the microwave oven for about one minute. Remove the plate from the microwave oven. Put the cooked pancakes on this heated plate and cover the pancakes with aluminum foil until ready to serve.
Because the pancakes are already sweetened with chocolate chips, you may not need to serve this with syrup. However, if you wish to serve it with syrup, warm the syrup before serving.
If you have any extra bacon left, serve them on the side.