Whole Wheat Choc Chip Banana Bread Pancakes — The Sunday Morning Thank-You Stack

Paul surprised me. Thirty years of marriage and the man can still surprise me, which either speaks to his subtlety or my obliviousness, and I suspect it's a little of both. He made dinner on Saturday. Not spaghetti-with-jarred-sauce dinner, which is his standard repertoire. He made a full meal: salmon with dill sauce, roasted potatoes, and a salad with actual effort in it — greens and sliced beets and goat cheese and a vinaigrette that he made himself, in a jar, by shaking it, which is the correct method and one I didn't know he knew. I came home from a twelve-hour shift and the kitchen smelled like cooking and the table was set with candles and Paul was wearing an apron — my apron, which is too small for him and which made him look like a man in a costume, which he essentially was — and he said, "Happy Valentine's Day." Valentine's Day is Tuesday, not Saturday. I pointed this out. He said, "I know. But you work Tuesday. So we're celebrating early." He planned ahead. He factored in my schedule. He bought salmon and dill and beets and goat cheese and he made a vinaigrette in a jar and he put on a too-small apron and he cooked me dinner on the wrong day because the wrong day was the right day and thirty years of marriage doesn't make the gesture smaller. It makes it bigger. The salmon was good. Not perfect — he overcooked it slightly, because Paul's instinct when in doubt is to cook things longer, which works for beef but not for fish — but the dill sauce was excellent and the potatoes were properly crispy and the salad was, I'll admit, better than some of mine. I told him this. He glowed. Sven got the salmon skin, which is his Valentine's Day gift every year, whether it's Valentine's Day or not. After dinner we sat on the couch and Paul read me a passage from his current shipwreck book — the Henry B. Smith, lost in 1913 and not found until 2013 — and I leaned against his shoulder and closed my eyes and listened to his voice, which is low and steady and has been reading me things for thirty years, and I thought: this is love. Not the roses-and-chocolate kind. The salmon-on-the-wrong-day kind. The reading-aloud kind. The apron-too-small kind. I made Swedish pancakes for Sunday breakfast — pannkakor, thin and golden, with lingonberry jam and powdered sugar — as a thank-you. Paul ate five. "You're welcome," I said. He said, "For what?" I said, "For the pancakes." He said, "I thought the pancakes were from you." I said, "They are. You're welcome for me." He laughed. We've been making the same kind of jokes for thirty years. They get better, not worse. February is still gray. But the gray has a man in it who makes salmon on the wrong day, and that changes the color of everything.

Paul made dinner, so I made breakfast — that’s just how the math works after thirty years. I wanted something that felt like more than toast but didn’t require the kind of focus a twelve-hour shift had already borrowed from me, something warm and a little indulgent and genuinely happy on the plate. These whole wheat banana bread pancakes with chocolate chips were exactly that: thick enough to feel like a treat, wholesome enough that I didn’t feel guilty watching Paul eat five of them, and golden in a way that matched the whole mood of the weekend. Pannkakor — Swedish-style — are thinner and more delicate, but on a gray February Sunday, sometimes you want something with a little more weight to it, something that says stay at the table a while longer.

Whole Wheat Choc Chip Banana Bread Pancakes

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 25 minutes | Servings: 4 (about 3 pancakes each)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 medium ripe bananas, mashed (about 3/4 cup)
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 tbsp pure maple syrup, plus more for serving
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan
• 1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Powdered sugar, for serving (optional)

Instructions

1. Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the whole wheat flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt until evenly combined.
2. Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, mash the bananas well until nearly smooth. Add the eggs, buttermilk, maple syrup, vanilla extract, and melted butter, and whisk together until combined.
3. Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until just combined — a few lumps are fine. Do not overmix. Fold in the chocolate chips.
4. Rest the batter. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes while you preheat your skillet or griddle over medium heat. This gives the whole wheat flour time to hydrate and results in a fluffier pancake.
5. Cook the pancakes. Melt a small pat of butter in the skillet. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake onto the surface. Cook until bubbles form across the top and the edges look set, about 2 to 3 minutes. Flip and cook for another 1 to 2 minutes until golden brown and cooked through. Repeat with remaining batter, adding butter as needed between batches.
6. Serve. Stack and serve warm with a dusting of powdered sugar and a generous pour of maple syrup. Lingonberry jam, if you have it, is not wrong here at all.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 390 | Protein: 11g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 61g | Fiber: 6g | Sodium: 310mg