Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes

I'm shaking things up here in the 'Burg. I think I'm going to start doing the logical thing and show you a picture of the finished product at the beginning of each post to pique your interest. There's no need to keep you in suspense until the bottom of the page to see what I'm talking about. The star of today's show - pumpkin oatmeal pancakes.

I had some pumpkin left over from another recipe and thought this might be a good way to use it up. I had a hankering for pancakes so I decided to try to modify a tried and true recipe to incorporate the pumpkin. My friend, Kristen, gave me her favorite oat pancake recipe (I'm not sure where her recipe originated) and they're always delicious so I thought it would make for a good starting point. 

Pumpkin Oatmeal Pancakes
(adapted from Kristen's Oat Pancakes)
Makes about 9-12 small pancakes

1/2 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
3/4 cup oats
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons butter, melted

Combine dry ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in a second bowl. Combine wet and dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Cook on medium heat until bubbles pop and the surface looks dry. Flip and cook for an additional 1 to 2 minutes. Serve with syrup and enjoy!

And here is the finished product. I thought they turned out quite well for a spur of the moment recipe modification. They could use a little bit more spice but otherwise they were quite tasty. A very easy recipe to pull together when you have some extra pumpkin kicking around. 

What's your favorite kind of pancake?

Plenty of Pumpkin: Cinnamon Rolls

I love pumpkin. I don't really know what it is about it that I love so much. For as long as I can remember, pumpkin pie has been one of my favorite foods. Every year I look forward to the Fall. Nothing goes with cool weather like pumpkiny treats. It's probably the spices that make everything so tasty, but I love it nonetheless. 

I've already posted one pumpkin recipe this season. On with number two - pumpkin cranberry cinnamon rolls from King Arthur Flour. This is the first recipe I've featured on here that uses yeast. I'll admit, I don't use it very often. It's as intimidating to me as pie crust (which I'll have to try soon) but I made this recipe once a couple of years ago and I knew the time and effort required was worth it for the results.

We all learn from our mistakes, right? The first time I made these I messed up big time. The King Arthur recipe calls for instant yeast and I used yeast from the Bulk Barn that must have been regular yeast. Poor choice. Since I hadn't dissolved the yeast in anything there were little bits left in the dough and it didn't rise well. This time, even though I was using instant yeast, I dissolved it for a few minutes in 1/4 cup of slightly warmed milk (substituted for the water and milk powder) before adding it to the rest of the wet ingredients.

Kneaded dough

The yeast definitely did its job this time. I left the dough to rise for a little more than an hour and it more than doubled in size. I added the post-it after a few minutes so I could mark where the dough started out.

Before rising

After rising

The recipe calls for the dough to be rolled up along the short edge and cut into nine rolls. I found this made for HUGE cinnamon rolls so I cut it in half to make 18 smaller rolls. I also decided to add cranberries to half and leave the second half plain. 
 

There was a lot of room left in between the rolls when I put them into a parchment lined 13"x9" pan. I was a little concerned that they weren't going to fill the pan but, after the second rising, everything looked great. 

Before the second rising - lots of empty space

After the second rising - nice and snug

Since I made smaller rolls, I reduced the baking time to about 20 minutes at 350 degrees. 

The finishing touch to these pumpkin beauties was the simple icing on top. 

• 1 cup glazing or confectioners' sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 1/2 tablespoons milk, or enough to make a "drizzlable" glaze

I had some maple syrup in the fridge so I substituted half of the milk with syrup. I don't think it really added anything to the taste, so don't worry about trying to fancy it up. 
 

Yum

All in all, these took about three and a half hours to complete but I think they're definitely worth it. To quote one of my co-workers/taste testers, Andra - "That was, without a doubt, the absolute best cinnamon roll I have had the privilege of eating. EVER." If you're looking for a twist on a basic recipe, I recommend you give these a try. 

What's the one seasonal food you look forward to most?

Share Your Sweets: Breakfast Breads

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve participated in the Share Your Sweets slideshow on Serious Eats. Seeing that the theme for this week was ‘breakfast breads’ I figured I had to participate. As evidenced by the Great Bake Sale of 2011, I love loaves and quick breads. We’re entering into my favourite season, and there’s nothing that says Fall more than pumpkin, so I figured I might as well make a pumpkin loaf to submit for the slideshow.  

Despite how much I love pumpkin, I don’t really have too many pumpkin recipes in my repertoire. I’ve made pumpkin cinnamon rolls and pumpkin crumble bars (both soon to be posted here), and of course I’ve made pumpkin pie (probably my favourite food ever in life), but I didn’t have a recipe for a pumpkin loaf.

I started searching around on the internets and finally came across one from a familiar source. The recipe comes from Lynne Frappier’s blog, The Twisted Chef. Lynne was one of the judges at the infamous Ottawa CupcakeCamp that inspired the whole desire to document my baking adventures. Over the last year, she and I have become Twitter buddies (in my mind anyway) and often discuss baking, cupcakes, and the like. Here’s the thing I love about Twitter – we’ve never actually met in person. Despite having a mutual friend in real life (Hi Amanda!) and spotting her at Montreal CupcakeCamp, we’ve never actually managed to have a face to face conversation even though I feel like we have. The wonders of the internet.

Apologies for the tangent. Lynne’s pumpkin loaf recipe was just what I was looking for. A straightforward recipe (that she’d made many times with great success) that also provided some variations. I decided to go with the chocolate chip. 

This is what happens when I make a recipe I found online and forgot to print. It gets written out in shorthand on the back of a random envelope. This is scaled to half of Lynne's original recipe.

The recipe came together really easily and I loved that I didn’t have to pull out the KitchenAid. Two bowls, a whisk, and a spatula were all I needed. I cut the recipe in half because I only have one 9” loaf pan and I’d already brought a bunch of baking into the office the day before and figured my poor co-workers didn’t need to worry about devouring two huge pumpkin loaves on top of everything else.

I made a couple of small modifications. I used half allspice and half cloves. Instead of a full 1/3 cup of water I used about half water and half maple syrup just because I had it around. I don’t think it made any noticeable difference to the taste so definitely feel free to go along with the original recipe.

Trust me - it tastes better than this picture makes it look

I loved this. It tastes like Fall. It’s super moist. It’s delicious. A few co-workers were unsure about the pumpkin/chocolate combo but they liked it a lot after tasting it. It holds up well too. Today is day three and it’s still delicious. I would most certainly recommend you try this one out.

What is your favourite recipe for Fall?