Fluffy Pumpkin Pancakes

In all my excitement over delicious sheet-pan dinners, I totally missed the seventh anniversary of this blog. I was a wee young grad student when I started this blog, and in the almost-decade since, I’ve gotten one degree, two internships and three jobs, plus lived in five different apartments in three different neighborhoods in the best city on Earth.

In all that time, I’ve never made a stack of pancakes. In fact, in all of my 28 years of living, I’ve never made pancakes. It’s not that I don’t like them — on the contrary, my mom woke up and made us pancakes every day for breakfast for a few years in high school (clearly have never been on a low-carb diet), and it’s one of my go-to’s when I’m hungover. But somehow, I’ve never woken up on a Sunday morning and whipped up a quick stack (which is how I assume pancake people talk?)

A few weeks ago, while cleaning out the fridge, I found some leftover pumpkin puree. It was still good, as was the one egg I had left in the carton and the juuuust-over-one-cup of milk I had left in the fridge. My destiny could not have been more clear: it was finally pancake time.

Whipping up the batter takes less than a minute — I mixed the wet ingredients right in my extra-large measuring cup, and the five minutes that you let the batter rest allow you to grab a second cup of coffee and prepare yourself for griddlin’. The batter is pretty thick, but I used a ladle to form my pancakes and didn’t have any issues. Add a tablespoon or two of extra milk if yours is too thick to pour.

Since I’ve never made pancakes before, I wasn’t really sure about when to flip and all that jazz, but thankfully, bae stepped in and told me about the bubble trick: when you start to see small bubbles forming on the top of the pancake, it’s time to flip. Since the batter is thicker, by the time you see enough bubbles, the one side may be a bit more “golden” than you’d like. Not a problem — lower the heat a bit and you should be okay.

You may want something fancy with your pumpkin pancakes, but I found that these were pretty delicious all on their own: lightly spiced, fluffy and just perfect with a heap of chopped pecans, a pat of butter and a drizzling dousing of maple syrup. I don’t normally play domestic diva on Sunday mornings, but the when I do, I hope it’s always this delicious!

Pumpkin Pancakes

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Print Recipe

Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

• 1–1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons light brown sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• a pinch of ground ginger
• a pinch of ground cloves
• 1 cup whole or 2% milk
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted (plus more for cooking and serving)
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• maple syrup and chopped pecans for serving

Cook Mode

Instructions

1. In a large bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves.
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, pumpkin, egg, melted butter and vanilla extract. Pour the wet ingredients over the flour mixture and whisk gently until completely combined. Let sit for 5 minutes.
3. Melt a half-tablespoon of butter in a small nonstick skillet on medium-low heat. Ladle 1/3-cup of the batter into the skillet. Cook for 2-3 minutes, until the edges are set and the bubbles around the edges are open and set. Flip and cook on the second side for an additional 2 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve immediately, with lots of maple syrup, chopped pecans and a pat of butter.

Notes

• Leftover pancakes can be frozen for up to a month.