Cinnamon Swirl Pumpkin Pancakes

Okay. I promise that this, THIS is the last pumpkin recipe. Well, probably. I guess I shouldn't really make any promises since as far as I'm concerned, pumpkin is fair game until Thanksgiving. Plus I've still got a few cans of pumpkin in the pantry, so who knows what will happen. The great thing about this recipe though, is that it's really not about the pumpkin. The pumpkin is just a welcome guest at the pancake party. But he's not necessary to make the party a success. The real center of attention is the cinnamon swirl, and it can be invited to any pancake party, pumpkin or not. You can even add it to pancakes made with boxed or bottled mix to make them extra special. That's what I do!

The mix of softened butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, swirled onto the uncooked side of a pancake, then flipped, melts and makes one side of the pancake extra delicious with a perfect crispy ring where the butter kind of fries the swirl. Did that make sense? Just make them and you'll understand.

Here's what you'll need:

not pictured: milk and sugar. oops :)

Pancakes:
your usual pancake ingredients or mix
pureed pumpkin
vanilla
sugar
milk
(I like to add a spoonful of sugar and a splash of vanilla to my boxed pancake mix batter.)

Cinnamon Swirl:
1/2 stick of butter; softened
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/4 t cinnamon (I actually used pumpkin pie spice)

- First, mix up your favorite pancake mix as you usually would. If you're using a boxed mix, then adding about a tablespoon of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla will make them extra light and fluffy. I added about 1 cup of canned pumpkin to mine and ended up adding probably another 1/2 cup of milk to get the batter back to normal pancake consistency.

- In a small bowl, stir together the softened butter, brown sugar and cinnamon. If the butter isn't quite soft enough, you can microwave it for a few seconds, but you really don't want it completely melted. Just nice and soft. Once it's all mixed together, spoon it into a Ziploc baggie and snip the corner off so that the opening is about 1/4" wide.

- When the batter is ready, ladle some onto a heated griddle or skillet set on medium heat. I don't usually butter the griddle since it's pretty non-stick. But you can if you need to.

- Right after ladling out some batter, squeeze some of the butter/cinnamon mixture onto the uncooked sides of the pancakes in a swirl.

- When the pancake batter starts to bubble on the top and the butter swirl looks melty, flip the pancakes as usual. Cook until done then flip them onto a plate so you can see that beautiful cinnamon swirl. Stack them up high, then cover with syrup and enjoy! If you're feeling extra fancy, you could make cream cheese icing to spoon over the top, like you'd have on regular cinnamon rolls :)

Mmmmm, that's the buttery goodness crisping up the bottom of the pancake.

These are sooooo tasty, and even I couldn't quite finish 3 of them! It's such an easy way to fancy up some plain pancakes. AND, they freeze pretty well. Joe had already eaten breakfast when I made these so I had lots of leftovers. If you just put them in single serving baggies, you can pop them in the microwave for 20 seconds or so for a quick snack. They really don't even need syrup since one side is buttery and sugary.

I guess that's about it for tonight. I had a little brush with fame (blogging fame at least) today that I'll tell you about soon. But right now I've going to focus on the LSU, Bama game. LET'S GO TIGERS!