Recipe: Disappearing Whole Wheat Pumpkin Pancakes
The Tyrant and I LOVE pancakes, and this recipe is a fall favorite of ours. If you can get your hands on a good organic, heirloom pumpkin via your garden or a local grocery/farmers market, we’d highly recommend doing so. Freshly roasted and puréed pumpkin is so much healthier & tastier than the canned pumpkin you get in the grocery store. When you’re careful about where your pumpkin comes from and you process it yourself, you won’t have to worry about eating unknown pesticides or BPA (bisphenol A) that is currently found in almost all canned foods in the US. Yikes!
Click here to read our post showing you how you can easily process your own fresh pumpkin into a puree that can be used in lots of different pumpkin recipes, including this delicious, whole wheat pumpkin pancake recipe.
OK, are you ready to make some pancakes now?
- 2 cups White Whole Wheat Flour (we use Hodgson Mills Organic, Non-GMO flour which Susan thinks has the best texture of all the flours she’s ever tried)
- 2 Tb. Pure Maple Syrup or Honey
- 2 tsp. Cinnamon
- 1 tsp. Chinese Five Spice
- ½ tsp. of the following: Ginger Powder, Ground Cloves, Ground Nutmeg
- *if you don’t have all those spices, you can also just use about 5 tsp. of “Pumpkin Pie Spice”
- 2 tsp. Baking Powder
- 1 tsp. Baking Soda
- ½ tsp. Sea Salt
- 2 cups Milk (I used whole but 2% would work or even non-flavored almond or soy)
- 1 Duck Egg or Large Chicken Egg
- 1 cup Pumpkin Puree
- 2 tsp. Vanilla Extract
- *Optional: 1 Tb. of Sunflower or Saflower Oil
- Use butter or veggie oil to cook pancakes in frying pan
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients: pumpkin puree, milk, maple syrup, egg, and vanilla.
- In a separate mixing bowl, combine the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices. Whisk until uniformly mixed together.
- Combine the wet and dry ingredients and whisk or blend together.
- Put a frying pan or griddle on medium heat. Once the pan is heated, lightly butter the bottom of the pan (use real butter from local, free-range cows, not the fake stuff!)
- Ladle a scoop of batter onto the griddle based on the size of pancakes you prefer.
- Once bubbles form on the uncooked side of the pancake, flip them and cook for a few minutes until both sides are brown.
- Stack ‘em on a plate, add some pure maple syrup or fruit preserves to the top, and enjoy with someone special!
Thanks for reading and as always,
Aaron & Susan
Awesome… Do you can your home grown pumpkins? What kind of pumpkins are not for jacklanterns? I used to and had many compliments on my pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving time…
Ellen: Thanks for the questions, and we’re so sorry you had to wait 4 days for a reply from us (both Susan and I thought the other one had already responded).
For storage, we do both of the following: 1) hang on to some of our pumpkins in a cool, dry place indoors (as of Feb 5th, we actually have some pumpkins that are still in perfect shape that we haven’t eaten yet); 2) bake them and store the pureed flesh in freezer bags (these last for a long time (years) and taste as good as fresh pumpkin in recipes).
As for jack-o-lanterns: I think that may be more a matter of personal preference and size of pumpkin. I’d imagine any pumpkin over a certain size would be a good jack-o-lantern candidate, and all pumpkins are edible. However, there is a difference in flavor profiles between pumpkins, and there are tons of varieties to choose from once you start looking at heirloom varieties. Here’s a link to one of our favorite sources for pumpkin seeds: http://rareseeds.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=pumpkin&searchbox=products&Submit=
We’d love to hear more about your Thanksgiving pumpkin pie. Any secrets to making it just right?