Whole Wheat Pancakes with Whey

Made ricotta cheese recently? Have a whole lot of leftover whey and no ideas on what to do with it? Never seen whey in your life and you're wondering why it looks mildly like uncooked egg whites? Well, friends, you've come to the right place.

I made ricotta cheese the other day and I thought it would be fun to try something with the leftover whey from the cheese making. I figured if the cheese could be that amazing then anything made with the whey would be just as good. Simple reasoning, right? Right.

I googled for a bit about what exactly to do with all this whey and once I got past all of the body building websites (yikes) I found a couple of helpful forums. Mostly, people talked about adding it to baked goods where you would normally add buttermilk. So.... the experiment began.

Side note about pancake making which has absolutely nothing to do with whey but has a lot to do with nostalgic memories of making pancakes at my Dad's house on Saturday mornings. My Dad used to have this awesome griddle in his kitchen. Why someone decided to put a gigantic griddle in his condo is completely beyond me... I think it must have been a 70's thing to go with that amazing avocado refrigerator  Anyway, we made a lot of pancakes on that thing. We would wake up on Saturday mornings and I would dump half of the ingredients on the counter help make the batter (things haven't changed much, have they Dad?). Then he would let me help cook them and when I got old enough I would actually cook them myself. He was always very specific about how much the batter was mixed and exactly how to cook the pancakes. They had to start bubbling on the edges and look just the slightest bit dry. I still make pancakes exactly like that. And they always turn out perfectly. Except now I add crazy things to the batter... like whey.

Whole Wheat Whey Pancakes
Adapted from Joy the Baker

If you don't want to use whey or you're scared of whey or you haven't made cheese in a while (sheesh) then go ahead and use whole milk in the recipe instead of the whey like I used here. They would be just as delicious.

1 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/3 cup cornmeal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 cup whey
1.2 cup whole milk
2 eggs
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla

Combine flour, corn meal, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk whey, milk, eggs and vanilla. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour in the liquid. Whisk until combined, and then let it sit for 5 minutes to thicken.

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and melt a pat of butter in the center. Add about 1/3-1/2 cup of batter to the pan and let it cook until the edges get all bubbly and slightly dry. Then flip and cook the other side until done.

Serve with strawberries and homemade ricotta from the other day if you have it.

Enjoy!