Pumpkin Pancakes

There are many simple pleasures in life. Tonight, we chose to take advantage of one of my very favorite simple pleasures: Breakfast for dinner.

I've been craving breakfast foods for a few days now. Cinnamon rolls, pancakes, hashbrowns, waffles. Images of sweet foods dancing around in my head, and teasing my tastebuds. And tonight, I gave in. The perfect recipe to indulge in? Pumpkin pancakes.

A couple of nights ago, Michael and I were watching an episode of Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives on the Food Network. Guy Fieri was visiting a diner for breakfast. Consequently, I think this show is responsible for my breakfast food craving. But I digress. Anyway, one of the foods featured was a plate of pumpkin pancakes.

Truth be told, I've never made pumpkin pancakes before. In fact, I've never even had them before. I'm not sure how I've gone 26 years without them, since I love pumpkin so much, but somehow, I have.

Well, no more. I put an end to that tonight.

My first step was to find a recipe. When I'm looking for a recipe for something specific, I often turn to allrecipes.com. I like it because there are usually recipes that have been tried by many, many people, and most of the recipes have been reviewed. It's nice to pick a recipe that you know is tried and true. Also, in their reviews, people often leave tips and advice, ways they altered the recipe, etc. It's very convenient.

So anyway, it didn't take me long to find a seemingly good pumpkin pancake recipe with a 4.5 star rating, and reviewed by 490 people. After reading several reviews, I felt this was a recipe that could be trusted. Perfect for my first experience with pumpkin pancakes.

Off to the kitchen I went to cook our meal. Of course, I didn't dive in empty handed. No, sir... I brought along the camera with our cool new lens. You know, just for experimental purposes.

As it turned out, I liked the results. Of both the photography and the pancakes.

These pancakes pack a lot of pumpkin flavor, and the amount and combination of spices was perfect. Taking the advice of some of the reviews, I added an extra egg, a tablespoon of granulated sugar, and a teaspoon of vanilla extract. The pancakes were fluffy and cakey. They were actually good on their own, but I enjoyed them even more with a few drizzles of syrup. Yum.

Pumpkin Pancakes
(Source: Adapted from Allrecipes.com)

Ingredients:
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tbsp. brown sugar
- 1 tbsp. granulated sugar
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1 tsp. baking soda
- 1 tsp. ground allspice
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 2 eggs
- 2 tbsp. vegetable oil
- 2 tbsp. vinegar
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Directions:
1. In a small bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin, eggs, oil, vinegar, and vanilla.

2. In a separate, larger bowl, combine the flour, sugars, baking powder, baking soda, and spices.

3. Add pumpkin/milk mixture into the large bowl with the dry ingredients. Stir just until combined.

4. Heat a lightly oiled (I use nonstick spray) griddle or skillet over medium high heat. Pour or scoop batter onto the griddle, using approximately 1/4 cup batter for each pancake. Brown on both sides and serve hot.

The original recipe says it makes 12 pancakes, but I got 18 out of it, plus a small silver-dollar-sized one for Tess. :) I used a 1/4 cup measuring cup to scoop the batter onto the skillet, so they were all consistent in size. I don't know why it made so many more than it called for, but we weren't complaining!

Back to work tomorrow! Boo...

**Update: The leftovers were surprisingly good! (We usually throw out extra pancakes because leftovers don't sound appealing.) These were too good to toss, so we put all leftovers into a ziploc sandwich bag and stuck them in the fridge. Today, I popped them in the toaster, and they are nearly as good as they were the other night.