I have been eyeing these babies up for months and finally decided to give them a try. I have to start by saying that I make pancakes for the kids often, but despite my interest in trying new recipes, my kid’s will always opt for Grandma Ruth’s Pancakes when given the choice. My mom’s recipe is for basic fluffy homemade pancakes without any extras ~ no berries, no bananas, no special sauces, just plain old pancakes with fake syrup. I think my kids must be the only humans on the face of the earth who get mad when I try to trick them by placing Pure Maple Syrup in the Aunt Jemima bottle. They both prefer the fake stuff, hands-down…go figure?

Cinnamon Swirl/Roll Pancakes:

I contemplated not posting this at all, but then thought I would share my experience with Cinnamon Swirl Pancakes. Fortunately, these pancakes tasted a lot better than they looked. They were delicious and even got a thumbs up from my kids. However, I am not sure I would make this exact recipe again. It is probably much more me than the recipe, but I have still opted not to share the recipe. I don’t want to knock someone else’s recipe, especially if it is more me than the recipe itself. There really was no way to make this pancake look good. To be honest, this was the best of the bunch.

Here is a photo of one of the pancakes that looked somewhat better than the rest. I wouldn’t call it a total failure as they were really good, but my presentation got a minus 1. Not too pretty!

The recipe I used called for sour cream in the pancake batter. I thought this was interesting and was keen to try it, but the batter was super thick. When I poured the batter on the griddle, they didn’t even really flow into a nice circle shape. I also found that the cooked pancakes seemed more inclined to fall apart, almost like they didn’t bind or something. Not sure, but I prefer my Mom’s recipe. I think that the batter that you use is probably irrelevant to the final results, next time I will use our tried and true favourite….Grandma Ruth’s Pancake Recipe!

The cinnamon mixture that was used for the filling was very runny. I followed the instructions, but know from making cinnamon buns that this mixture is usually much thicker. The recipe I followed called for equal amounts of brown sugar and butter and I found it very difficult to pipe the sugar “into” the pancake batter as it was a big runny mess.. You need more sugar than butter. Recipe Girl suggests 1/4 butter to 1/4 cup + 2 T. of brown sugar + 1/2 T. cinnamon ~ this sounds better, I will follow her recipe and suggestions next time. And, oh yes, there will be a next time. Despite the less than successful attempt at creating a visually appealing pancake with a cute little swirl, they were delicious! 

You can see the brown sugar mixture is quite runny.

I basically did everything they said not to do….got too close to the edges and found it too runny to pipe “into” the batter as suggested.  What a mess!

On top of the mess with the swirls, the cooked pancakes seemed fall apart really easily. The Maple Coffee Glaze was also delicious, but almost too sweet for me.

Cinnamon Swirl/Roll Pancake recipes are all over the internet. If you love pancakes or even if you don’t, these are worth the extra effort and I suggest giving them a try. I wouldn’t plan to serve them for company until you’ve tried them out first as they are a bit finicky.  Follow Recipe Girl’s tips and I think the results will be great. I can’t wait to try her cream cheese glaze. Having said that, I think these fall into the category of a rarely treat ~ they are simply sinful and would rank pretty low on the nutrients scale!

Here is a shot of the stack made by Recipe Girl. I put this in to inspire you! This was the look I was going for, but missed by a mile. Good luck!

I thought I would share my mom’s tried and true recipe for regular fluffy pancakes. I love this recipe and find that it is a great basic recipe to play with. I have had great success using whole wheat flour entirely or even just using it in conjunction with the white flour. I have also had some success using coconut flour although I am not going to even try to suggest that it is the same. You can also use this basic recipe and add your favourite fruit directly into the batter. I love to add blueberries, pumpkin, bananas or peaches. Yummy!

Grandma Ruth’s Pancakes

1 1/2 cups of flour
1-2 Tablespoons sugar
1 Tablespoon Baking Powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1 1/4 cups of milk
2 Tablespoons oil or melted butter

Sift dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and mix well either by hand or with an electric mixer. Cook on a preheated griddle or in a non-stick pan. Flip the pancakes when bubbles start to form on the surface of the batter.

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