Swedish Pancakes, Health-ified

So we still owe a post about the East Coast trip, complete with all the pictures. We're also busy taking a bunch of pictures today - it's Alden's first Christmas, and he's going to meet his auntie Laura for the first time when we go to Great Grandma and Great Grandpa's house for Christmas dinner.

But in the interim, I thought I would recipe blog while Alden's having his breakfast. We made it a family tradition after we were married to have Swedish pancakes on Christmas morning. I got the recipe from Alden's Great Grandma Mackey - the same one she used to feed my mom and Andy, Laura and me when we were kids; but being me, I had to try to make it a tad more healthy, and add my own twists.

Here's the original recipe:

1.5 cups white flour
1 tsp. salt
3 tsps. sugar
3 eggs, well beaten
3 cups milk
3 Tbsp. melted butter

Here's what I did to it:

3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
1 tsp. Morton's light salt
3 tsps. Splenda
3 Omega 3 eggs, well beaten
3 cups nonfat milk
2 Tbsps. melted Smart Balance
1 Tbsp. flax oil

The preparation is the same:

Mix all dry ingredients. Then whisk dry ingredients with milk. Then whisk in eggs; then wisk in melted Smart Balance and oil.

Heat a large (non-stick) griddle (I use medium to medium low heat - use the same as you would for regular pancakes) and grease it (I spray with Canola-oil cooking spray). Use a scant half-cup of batter and swirl around to cover most of the bottom of the pan (it's like a crepe - thin and large circumfrence). Cook on one side, flip once, cook on the other and you're set.

Grandma Mackey always served with butter and syrup. We decided to go more crepe-like and make our own fruit topping. We used one little plastic crate of raspberries, half a cup of water, 3 tablespoons of Splenda, 1/2 tsp. cinnamon, 1 tsp. vanilla extract, three shakes of ground nutmeg and a tsp. of Smart Balance, brought it to a boil and then simmered for 1/2 hour or so while we made the batter and the pancakes.

Then we rolled them up, put a little more Smart Balance on, spooned on some sauce and served with more fresh raspberries. To quote Ginny and Rachel Ray: Yummo!

- Chris