As far as I’m concerned, the best holiday gift is one that’s handmade and edible. And if you can make it in big batches on a budget – and have it be healthy – even better.

That’s the thinking behind this delicious pancake and waffle mix. Face-to-face with a whiny child on a Sunday morning, too many otherwise accomplished and adventurous home cooks reach for a box of pre-fab pancake mix. That’s a shame, not least because it’s easy to make your own mix, using ingredients of your choice, and to do so in – you guessed it – a jiffy.

The food police love to vilify pancakes and waffles as nothing more than carbs and sugar, but these guilty pleasures can be nobler than that. At their base, pancakes and waffles depend on a few key ingredients: flour, salt, sugar and leavener. If you swap in whole-wheat flour for at least some of the white flour, add a little flaxseed, slash some of the sugar, and top off the finished product with fresh fruit, you’re suddenly looking at a very respectable breakfast. Heck, you even could drizzle a little Grade B maple syrup (my favorite) on top, and it still would be a healthy choice.