Chocolate Chip Pancakes Mount Holyoke Style

posted on: Thursday, February 24, 2011




On Saturday morning I woke up craving chocolate chip pancakes. I had a nice cozy dream wherein I was having breakfast at Mount Holyoke, my alma mater. Mount Holyoke was the bomb. Not only did I learn a thing or two but I also got to eat chocolate chip pancakes almost on a daily basis for 4 years, at my leisure, without having to worry about feeding them to anyone else. On Saturday I made my own version of the pancakes. It took a couple tries and way too much time to get it just the way I wanted it to be and so here is the successful recipe. And here is a disclaimer: this post will not be about babies wearing Christmas pajamas in February playing with toasters. Mostly this post will be me. And chocolate chip pancakes.

Chocolate Chip Pancakes

2 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
oil for frying
1 cup large chocolate chips
  1. Stir together all the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Make a well in the middle of the mixture using a whisk.
  2. In a smaller bowl microwave the butter until melted. Whisk in the milk, vanilla. and eggs.
  3. Pour the wet ingredients into the well in the dry ingredients and whisk to make a thick, smooth batter.
  4. Heat a large frying pan over medium heat and add 1 teaspoon oil. Let it heat up for a few seconds then add 1/4 cup of batter. The batter will start to sizzle. Add a couple chocolate chips to the pancake. Cook the pancakes for 1 minute or until small holes start to pop on the surface.
  5. Flip over the pancake with wide spatula and cook for an additional minute.
  6. Transfer to a plate and eat immediately or put it in the oven in low heat (275*) to keep warm until ready to eat.
  7. Eat the pancakes hot with butter, maple syrup, and a handful of chocolate chips. 
This post is not random, I promise. It's conveniently being published at this time where A) I'm figuring out the logistics to attend my 5 year college reunion and B) where La Fuji Mama is celebrating pancake week  and C)I'm starting to mentally prepare myself to start teaching undergrads again in a couple of weeks and I can not for the life of me stop thinking about what a ridiculously privileged education I had.



No really, my education was totally privileged. The 2011 Princeton Review awarded Mount Holyoke as the best college in the country for classroom experience. In past years it's won numerous awards, for being the best liberal arts college, for having the most beautiful campus (which is does), for a bunch of other really important things. So important I obviously can't remember them.


This is a picture of the alumnae reunion weekend, which happens during graduation. O.K, see the sign in the middle that says "We miss milk and cookies..." Yes, every school night we got milk and cookies before bed.


What you didn't? Bummer. Oh and you didn't get chocolate chip pancakes every morning either. Double bummer. At Mount Holyoke everyone lives in the dorms. I would wake up go downstairs to my dinning hall and order a chocolate chip pancake. It started becoming so routine that the chef would already have it ready for me when I would come down wearing my Winnie the Pooh night gown. Why do 19 year olds like Pooh Bear?

And then I met Christian. Looking at this picture he kind of resembles a bear. It's a little creepy.


And Christian was a student at Yale. So between Mount Holyoke and Yale I just figured every college experience was the same, fabulous that is.

Then I moved to California and then I started working in the UC system where classroom size can skyrocket in the hundreds. Hundreds!  Most of my classes at Mount Holyoke had less then 10 students. So apparently not every school in this country is Ivy League-ish huh? 

Through a series of very fortunate events I was able to get a scholarship to Mount Holyoke. I hope Maria gets to go there one day. I hope we never have to pay for it because it costs a million dollars. 

So where am I going with this? No where. I mainly just found these pics and wanted to share them. Christian's hair equals awesome. My dorm room was fun. Milk and cookies nearly killed me and also saved my life. It was the daily access and excess of milk that made me realize I was lactose intolerant. 

I wish I still had someone make me chocolate chip pancakes every day.
But mostly I wish everyone would be able to have quality education in this country.

Speaking of education did I mention my cousin's 17 year old is coming to live with us? As of Saturday I will have a teenager living in my home. His name is Gabriel. He wants to come and learn how to speak English. I know it doesn't really make sense for him to live with us since we only speak Portuguese at home but it makes sense to my Brazilian family so I'm happy to comply.

Oh and speaking of education (this is a far far stretch) tomorrow I am learning how to make puff pastry. Remember how I said I would never make puff pastry from scratch? Well a local baker read that post got in contact with me and said that it was ridiculous to not make puff pastry from scratch. Tomorrow she's teaching me how to do it.

I'll be back on Monday with a teenager in my home and a knowledge about puff pastry making. I'm pretty excited for both.

Wait... there was something else...

Oh yeah, thank you thank you to all the people who've donated towards the KitcheAid group gift. If you have no idea what I'm talking about go here. If you do know what I'm talking about there is still time to contribute.  So far we have $210. Yay. That's huge. I knew you'd help me out and you did. This will not be last time I thank you for being you, so get used to it! Here is the thing, I want to buy her the KitchenAid on Wednesday. Why? Because it's my birthday and there is nothing I want more for my birthday than to give someone else a cool present. I don't need any presents right now, I'm mostly trying to purge things before our big move so don't even get tempted to send me anything. However, if you do want to make a girl happy on my birthday you can donate to the group present-KitchenAid-lets-make-a-mom-happy-fund. What do you say?

And before I go, because I really do have to go, I wanted to ask you what your favorite dorm food was.
Just super curious to know what you ate in college.
xoxo, Da

1 comments:

  1. Now I want chocolate chip pancakes. I just asked my pancake man (hubby, he makes us pancakes every Sunday) why doesn't he make us chocolate chip pancakes.

    ReplyDelete

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