I’ll fess up right now:  before this morning, I’d never made pancakes from scratch.  To me, “making pancakes” has always meant taking the box of Aunt Jemima Complete (“Just Add Water!”) out of the cabinet.  Making pancakes from scratch has always seemed appealing, but the kind of task undertaken by people with more culinary prowess than I.  Or people whose pantries routinely contain things like baking powder and flour.

Well, that’s changed, now that I’ve been cooking and actually have stuff in the pantry with which to make things like pancakes.  It’s also turned out to be really easy to make pancake batter from scratch; there’s an extra bowl and measuring cups to clean, but it doesn’t take that much more time to do.  No more instant boxed mix!

I came upon this Martha Stewart recipe for Pumpkin Pancakes after searching for something to make with the canned pumpkin we bought.  I made a slight alteration by using 1-1/2 teaspoons of Pumpkin Pie Spice instead of separately adding the cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves (I make my own Pumpkin Pie Spice with those same spices).  I also only had Egg Beaters, not actual eggs, so I used 1/4 cup of that instead of 1 egg.  Make sure you use plain canned pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling.

Ingredients:

  • 1-1/4 C all-purpose flour
  • 2 Tbsp sugar
  • 2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp ground ginger
  • 1/8 tsp nutmeg
  • pinch of cloves
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 C milk
  • 6 Tbsp canned pumpkin puree
  • 2 Tbsp melted butter
  • 1 egg

Instructions:

  • In a large bowl, whisk together flour baking powder, sugar, and spices.
  • In a medium bowl, stir together milk, egg, pumpkin and butter.
  • Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients.
  • Use 1/4-cupfuls to drop batter onto griddle/pan.  Makes 8-10 pancakes.

I found it helpful, because the batter is so thick, to drop the batter and then use the back of a large spoon in a spiraling motion from the center to spread out the batter a bit, not *too* much like a crepe, but to get the pancake thinner.  This ensures the middle will be well-cooked by the time the outsides are golden brown.

We ate these with butter and maple syrup, but they’d probably be very awesome with applesauce, too, or some spiced simple syrup and whipped cream.