Pumpkin Pancakes

The idea for these pancakes came from a recipe in Men's Health magazine. As I was glancing at their version of pumpkin pancakes, I noticed that they added Pumpkin Pie Spice to a boxed mix. I'm not really a fan of Pumpkin Pie Spice, but I am a fan of the spice mixture in my pumpkin gingerbread muffins, which gave me the inspiration to pull these pancakes together.

Here's what you'll need:

2 cups dry pancake mix (like Bisquick)

3 Tbs. brown sugar

1.5 cups milk

1 can pumpkin puree (16 oz.)

1 egg beaten

1 tsp. vanilla extract

1 Tbs. vegetable oil

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. cloves

1/2 tsp. all spice

1/2 tsp. ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in one bowl and mix all of the wet ingredients together in a separate bowl. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until thoroughly combined. Then, heat up your griddle or pan (I always use an electric griddle and cook 6 pancakes at a time) and cook over medium heat (300 degrees on the griddle) until golden brown.

**Note: The batter will be thick, so after I pour a 1/4 cup of batter on the griddle, I spread it with a spatula around to make a larger, thinner pancake.

The only way to serve these up is with pure maple syrup. In fact, in our house, we don't even keep any of the fake stuff (usually called pancake syrup or the like). Really and truly, I have no words for how good these are. They are sinfully flavorful and they taste more like dessert than breakfast. This recipe makes about 15 pancakes give or take and we have none leftover (normally, I refrigerate 5 pancakes for Parker to eat during the week). We all ate one helping and then two hours later, gravitated towards to kitchen to finish them off. These are definitely going to be on the menu the next time we have out-of-town guests.

So please, go forth and make these with wild abandon. I don't want to be alone in my pumpkin obsession.