I love fall desserts - all the spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves, and the foods like apple and pumpkin in just about everything. Recently, I used apples to make caramel and sautéed apple tarts, but on Sunday, I decided it was time to incorporate pumpkins in the mix. I made pumpkin pancakes with vanilla bean maple syrup and cinnamon butter. It resulted in a pancake meets pumpkin pie meets chewy ginger snap. Try it for yourself!

Pumpkin Pancakes with Vanilla Bean Maple Syrup and Cinnamon Butter

Cinnamon Butter:
¼ cup of butter (1/2 a stick)
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of brown sugar
3/4 teaspoon of cinnamon

Pumpkin Pancakes:
1 cup + 2 tablespoons of flour
2 tablespoons of cornmeal
2 tablespoons of light brown sugar
1 teaspoon of baking soda
1 teaspoon of baking powder
¾ teaspoon of cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of nutmeg
¼ teaspoon of ginger
½ teaspoon of salt
1 cup of buttermilk
1/3 a cup of plain yogurt
2/3 a cup of pumpkin pie filling
1 egg
1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 tablespoons of butter melted

Vanilla Bean Syrup:
1/3 a cup of maple syrup
½ a vanilla bean

1. First make the cinnamon butter. Soften the butter and then mash with a fork, add all the ingredients and stir until combined. Take a piece of parchment paper and put the cinnamon butter on it in a cylindrical shape. Roll up the parchment paper so that butter is encased in it. Stick the butter in the fridge and let harden while making pancakes.

2. Start the pancakes. In a large bowl mix the flour, cornmeal, light brown sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt until all the lumps from the sugar are out of the mixture.

3. In a medium bowl, mix the buttermilk, yogurt, pumpkin pie filling, egg, and vanilla extract until all the ingredients are thoroughly mixed together and the mixture is smooth. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until thoroughly incorporated, but not over mixed. The batter will be very light looking.

4. Make the syrup, put the syrup in a saucepan and scrape of vanilla seeds from bean and add it to the saucepan. Cook on medium low heat for 3 or 4 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into a serving cup.

5. Heat up a nonstick skillet to medium heat and add a small amount of butter. Ladle in pancake batter to your desired pancake size. When the batter start bubbling flip the pancakes (they will seem very undercooked on the top) and finish cooking (make sure to only flip the pancakes once or else they will deflate). Put the pancakes on a plate top with the cinnamon butter and vanilla bean syrup.

Enjoy!



FILED UNDER: paris starn , pancakes , baking , mini martha