Pumpkin Pancakes with Leftover Cream Cheese Frosting

So after my pumpkin cake didn't turn out exactly how I wanted for Thanksgiving, I had a lot of extra frosting to use up. I suggested making another cake, and while Dave loved what cake survived from Thanksgiving, he quickly said no as that would not be a good idea to have another cake around. I hate wasting food, so I immediately agreed to Dave's suggestion to make pumpkin pancakes last Sunday.

I started browsing recipes and found this one which looked perfect. I changed some of the seasoning as I didn't have pumpkin pie spice, but adding ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice is basically the equivalent.

Spiced Pumpkin Pancakes from epicurious.com

• 1 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/3 cups whole milk
• 3/4 cup canned pure pumpkin
• 4 large eggs, separated
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine the first 5 ingredients in large bowl and stir to mix. Whisk milk, pumpkin, egg yolks, melted butter and vanilla in medium bowl to blend well. Add pumpkin mixture to dry ingredients; whisk just until smooth (batter will be thick). Using electric mixer, beat egg whites in another medium bowl until stiff but not dry. Fold whites into batter in 2 additions.


Melt a little butter in a large nonstick skillet heated over medium heat. Working in batches, pour batter by 1/3 cupfuls into skillet.

Cook until bubbles form on surface of pancakes and bottoms are brown, about 1 1/2 minutes per side. Repeat with remaining batter, brushing skillet with butter between batches.


I topped with some of the cream cheese frosting from the Thanksgiving cake.


Results: These pancakes were delicious. I've cooked so much with pumpkin lately, but this is one of the few recipes where you could really taste it. The frosting was a nice touch, but made it seem like a dessert and really the amount of frosting used in the photo above was too much. I think Dave and I ate them plain after the first batch. I've never beat egg whites for pancakes before and while this is certainly extra work, these pancakes were spongy and fluffy. Especially the first batch that I made, right after the batter was mixed, I was almost worried they weren't cooking through, but they were just light and delicious. Definitely something different that I'll make again next fall.