Carrot Cake Pancakes From A Box!

I had an idea about making carrot cake flavored pancakes. The original recipe I created used all purpose flour and baking powder as the leavening agent. I added in all of the carrot cake spices with finely grated carrots.  The pancakes came out with a flour taste more than anything else and the original amount of baking powder was not sufficient. The pancakes were simply too flat, too much flour taste and the nutmeg I used over powered the flavor.

So step number two was to go back to the drawing board. The idea I came up with was to take a boxed carrot cake mix and add in the finely grated carrot and perhaps some finely ground walnuts. This was phase two of the quest for a pancake that tastes like carrot cake. My thinking was that the cake mix already contains the leavening ingredients and the flavors; so with the added ingredients we might have a winner. I sent my daughter to the store and lo and behold there was the perfect box mix!

The pancakes made from the mix were successful. This particular cake mix came with carrots and raisins that you needed to re-hydrate. They take a little longer to cook than a regular pancake; about 5 minutes each side over a very low heat.

They taste like carrot cake but come out like a pancake! One happy cook here. This is another economical way to feed your family - all from a box.  I made cupcakes with most of the mix and used some of the batter for the pancake testing.

You could do half and half - half for cupcakes and half for a breakfast meal or brunch. Just follow the directions on the box for the cake mix. It's that simple!

Either way, this is a winner - low budget and if you are feeding a crowd for brunch, then you will have plenty of batter to work with.
Along with testing pancakes I finished off the batter and made Carrot Cake Cupcakes.

Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting.