Our weekday mornings usually go a little something like this.
We awake to alarm clock #1.
It’s Sketchie and he’s impatient. He’s been awake prowling the house since who knows when.
I look at the clock and it’s 5:43am.
Meeeeeeeoooooowwwwwwww! Meowwwww. Feed meeeee-ow. Wake up. Meow. Meow. Meow. Meowwwwwww.
‘Sketchie!!!’
Meow….
Somehow I manage to get a half hour of “quality sleep” until the alarm goes off. I’m happy Sketchie didn’t win.
When the alarm goes off, suddenly, Sketchie is back. This time, he’s kneading my belly like a hunk of pizza dough. It tickles and I laugh like the Pillsbury Doughboy. Sometimes he gets a little carried away and his nails go through the comforter and prick my skin.
I feel loved.
When I come out of the bathroom, I drag Eric out of bed. This always takes a few attempts!
Sketchie and I walk downstairs. He purrs so soft this time and brushes against my leg the whole way down, pretending like his intrusive wake-up call never happened.
I forgive him.
After feeding Sketchie, I challenge myself to make the strongest cup of green tea in the world.
I usually win.
I pour a large, unknown quantity of tea leaves into my Bodum loose leaf tea pot and then add a few more for good measure. As it steeps, I head outside to water the garden, anxiously waiting my tea.
By the time I come back in, Eric is enjoying a huge bowl of spelt flakes, raisins, and chia seeds. He eats it in record time and then he spends about 6 hours brushing the chia seeds out of his teeth.
I pour my tea into a travel mug and we fly out the door to drive to the train station. We’re usually always running late and we arrive 60 seconds before it departs. A quick kiss and we part ways.
On this weekday morning, however, things went a bit differently!
I found out that Eric was working from home today, so I told Eric I would make our favourite breakfast…pancakes!
I made my usual crazy pancake stacks, this time adding a fun blueberry-vanilla bean twist. (You can check out all my pancake stack recipes here). And did they ever turn out incredible!
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Blueberry Vanilla Bean Stacked Pancakes with Blueberry Glaze
Adapted from Strawberry Shortcake Stacked Pancakes
Ingredients:
- 1 cup + 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
- 1/2 cup shredded, unsweetened coconut
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- Pinch or two kosher salt
- 3/4 cup Almond Milk
- 1 vanilla bean (optional), scraped
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1-2 tbsp pure maple syrup
- 3/4 cup warm water
- 1 cup blueberries + more for glaze (below)
- Oil, for skillet
- Blueberry glaze: 3/4 cup blueberries processed with 1 banana
- Shredded coconut, blueberries, maple syrup, to garnish on top.
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 250F and grab a baking sheet. Whisk the dry ingredients (flour, coconut, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt) in a medium sized bowl. In a small bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients (almond milk, warm water, vanilla extract, optional vanilla bean, maple syrup) and then add to the dry ingredients. Whisk well until no clumps remain. You can add more milk to thin it out as desired.
2. Preheat the skillet over low-medium heat and add some oil on the pan. Pour 1/4 cup of batter, per pancake, onto the skillet and quickly smooth out a circle with the back of a spoon. Cook until small bubbles appear on the surface and the bottoms of pancakes are golden. Reduce heat if necessary (I cook them on heat # ‘3’). Transfer to baking sheet and place in the oven to keep warm.
3. Meanwhile, make your blueberry glaze by processing 1 banana with 3/4 cup blueberries. Next, slice 1-2 bananas if you’d like to make the pancake stack as shown in the pictures. Once my pancakes are stacked, I scoop the blueberry glaze, coconut, and more sliced banana and blueberries on top. Drizzle with maple syrup if desired. Makes 6 medium pancakes or 8 small ones.
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I had a bunch of blueberries to use up so I threw a cup of them in the batter and then used the rest to make this delicious blueberry glaze.
To make the glaze, I processed 3/4 cup blueberries with 1 banana. We both really loved it as an alternative to maple syrup!
I love this pancake recipe because it’s made with 100% whole wheat flour and the pancakes are very fluffy and thick. The blueberries were just oozing out of them!
Sketchie is also a happy cat today.
One of Sketchie’s favourite things in the world is when Eric works from home. He loves to jump up on Eric’s lap to sleep for the afternoon or use his laptop as a butt warmer when he leaves his station. ;)
In other news, I have a guest post over at Eat Live Run today as well as an interview with Evolving Wellness…check ‘em out!
Have yourself a great Thursday!








LOVE that your kitty warms his butt on the lap top. Hysterical genius!
Your weekday still sounds more relaxing than my weekENDS!
These pancakes looks amazing. My husband refuses to eat chia seeds b/c they get stuck in his teeth. The toothbrush comment made me laugh!
I have the same alarm clock ! We acutally got into this bad habbit of getting up and feeding her when she’d wake us and that ‘first alarm clock’ got earlier and earlier… Something had to be done when that time was around 5am and earlier. (Plus the third alarm after our ‘real’ alarm goes off.) She now gets fed every morning at 9 which helps… It was SO HARD getting her to stop, but so worth it. hehe This morning my wake up call was at 6:30… not bad, right ? ;)
haha I know we refuse to feed sketchie until after we’re up! He usually gives up for a while until we get up.
I’d probably just eat that glaze on its own. I a glutton like that. :)
OMG! Those pancakes looks so delicious. I just love how you use all whole foods in all your recipes. They look so good, are gorgeous and I know are bursting at the seams with vitamins and minerals and excellence for the body. And, from the ones I have tried, are yummers in the tummers. I MUST try these pancakes. I am trying to convince my friends to have a ‘breakfast party’ just so I have an excuse to make a huge batch of your strawberry (or maybe now, blueberry?) pancakes.
I’m glad I’m not the only one finding chia seeds in my teeth for days ;)
Ha, I love that Sketchie is your alarm clock. My pup does that to me, too! I really appreciate mornings that she feels lazy and lets me sleep in. ;)
Love your guest posts, too! You are such an inspiration, and I love that you’re getting the great exposure!
In reference to Sketchy kneading pizza dough, you have to watch this video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DNOjKNbfWY
The blueberry glaze looks wonderful, I think I’d do soft serve instead though, as I love that frozen banana taste.
Angela – I just made whole wheat blueberry pancakes myself last week! http://fitandsplendor.com/2011/06/13/whole-wheat-blueberry-pancakes/
But, I absolutely love the idea of the blueberry / banana glaze topping. Definitely a better alternative to maple syrup.
I love the idea of using the blueberry/banana puree instead of maple syrup. I love syrup but sometimes it’s a little too sweet for breakfast. This looks like it’d be perfect!
Your cat is beautiful. And I would have loved these pancakes anyway — because Stephen and I are huge fans of pancakes — BUT that glaze puts them over-the-top. Would you believe I’ve never actually used vanilla bean . . . only extract . . . in all my baking? Maybe it’s time for a trip to the store.
These look awesome! Blueberries are ripe for the pickin’ in just a few weeks & I can’t wait. There’s nothing better than fresh berries! I love the banana mixed in between the pancake stacks!!
This makes me so glad that blueberries are on sale for $2/box!!!
haha the glaze is the icing on the.. er… pancake! <3 love it! and sketchie is beyonnnnd adorable! =)
I still haven’t ever made pancakes. I have an unnatural fear of burning them, but I don’t know why. Maybe these will help me overcome my fear. :) By the way, I have that same alarm clock. Annoying but adorable.
Hi, I just want to say that I visit your blog regularly and I love it!! And these pancakes look absolutely delicious, I can’t wait to try them. Blueberry pancakes are my favourite, so I can only imagine how wonderful they’d be with vanilla bean and banana!
This perhaps may seem like an odd question, but I was wondering what breed Sketchie is?? He is absolutely beautiful!!
Thanks! He is a Bengal.
Sketchie is such a beautiful cat!!
My parents used to be woken up by their cats so they sleep down in the basement now. :-)
Oh my, these look so delicious! And I’m totally not a cat person but Sketchie is gorgeous!
I need pancakes like this on the rainy day we’re having over here in NJ!
We are celebrating our son’s 2nd birthday this weekend – now I know what his birthday breakfast will be :) Is it Sunday yet??