Tonight at the Wilson abode dinner needed to satisfy a few different criteria. It needed to be generally soft for our youngest daughter Sophia (who is in the uncomfy process of acquiring three molars), it needed to be orange (don’t know where that came from), for our three year old Izzy, and it needed to involve less than three dishes for my sanity. I looked in our pantry for inspiration and saw the numerous cans of accumulated pumpkin. Pumpkin is orange. Hurrah! It was a starting point. Criteria #1: check.
I moved on to the fridge and couldn’t stop staring at the lovely, festive bottle of egg nog I had used earlier in the weekend for my egg nog ice cream experiment (results coming soon).
Next thing I knew criteria #2 and #3 had been reached and dinner was born. What is soft, orange, requires two dishes, measuring cups, a whisk, and can be produced via a base of eggs, egg nog, and pumpkin?
Egg Nog Pumpkin Pancakes!
For our daughter Izzy, pancakes could be a food group. She takes after her father, who feels the same. She was wildly excited when I told her we were having orange pancakes for dinner. I was wildly excited not to have added much to the leaning tower of dirty dishes I was behind on, and our Sophia ate more than she had all day.
So without further ado … An easy, healthy (minus the syrup), breakfast for dinner option to add to your repertoire.
Ingredients
3 eggs
1 cup pumpkin purée
2.5 cups egg nog
3t baking powder
1T sweetener such as vanilla sugar, agave, or whatever you enjoy.
1T coconut oil
1/4 cup chia seeds *
Cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger to taste (I started with 2t cinnamon and 1t nutmeg and 1/2t ginger)
2 cups all-purpose flour
Directions
Grab yourself a large bowl and crack the eggs into it. Give them a good whisk then add everything from the pumpkin purée through the spices. So yes, everything but the flour. You could get all proper on me and sift the flour, baking powder and spices together before adding them to the wet base, but for me that meant dirtying a sifter. I opted to dump everything in before gently folding in the flour.
At this point you should have a large bowl of lovely orange batter. It shouldn’t be runny but you don’t want it incredibly thick either. Depending on which egg nog you use, your ratio of flour to egg nog may need to increase/decrease slightly. If it’s too thin fold in more flour a tablespoon or so at a time. If too thick add more egg nog in a similar fashion.
Heat a griddle or skillet over medium low heat and apply some sort of non-stick cooking spray. Right now I’m really attached to my coconut oil spray. It’s absolutely fantastic!
These pancakes are decently dense so make sure you give them plenty of time on each side to fluff. Mine took almost 4 minutes per side. It’s always good to test run a small one just to see where your heat is at. I have an over enthusiastic electric range so it’s always an adventure.
These pancakes aren’t overly sweet, are packed full of good-for-you ingredients, and are just quite cozy. I am anxious to hear your thoughts.
*Chia seeds are an amazing source of protein, fiber, calcium, magnesium, and phosphorus. The latter three are essential for good bone health. They are so easy to incorporate and don’t have to be ground to acces their health benefits. Not so sure about putting them in your pancakes? Just give them a whirl. From a taste and texture standpoint you won’t even know they’re there. Check out this article at authoritynutrition.com to read more!
welliemum 