Pumpkin 'Spiced' Pancakes With Sinful Cinnamon Syrup

I love halloween! every year I will make these bad boys just because they are a little bit fun and you can sneak in a vegetable with your breakfast and barely tell!

These pancakes are really fun because you can make really cool shapes and designs with your pancakes and syrup but most importantly everyone can create their own spooky halloween breakfast!

I always like to go with a jack-o-lantern pancake but my brother likes making spider webs and sometimes we like making ghosts or witches hats.

I hope you like these, they aren't an artificial tasting pumpkin spice, by adding real pumpkin puree, it gives a lovely natural pumpkinness to it (especially if you make your own roasted pumpkin)

Step 1: Ingredients

For the Pancakes:

- 1 Cup pumpkin Puree (I make my own roasted pumpkin and then puree it myself, it give a great flavour! also we don't have pureed pumpkin in a can in Australia, so i had to make my own)

- 2 Cups of Plain flour

- 2 Cups of buttermilk (this is a very thick kind of milk which results in delicious fluffy pancakes but you can also use regular milk)

- 1 Egg (at room temperature)

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1 tsp Bicarb soda

- 3 tsp cinnamon

- 1/2 tsp Nutmeg

- 1/4 tsp ground cloves

- 3 Tbsp caster sugar

- 1 tsp vanilla extract

- Optional orange food colouring (this really makes a great colour contrast to the syrup, i will show you the difference later)

- Butter/ Oil for frying

For the Cinnamon Syrup:

- 1 tsp Vanilla extract

- 2 tsp ground cinnamon

- 1/2 tsp cornflour

- 1/2 Cup Caster sugar

- 1/2 Cup Brown sugar

- 1 Cup of water (you may want to add more if it is too thick)

- Black food colouring

Step 2: Equipment

- Electrix mixer

- Small sauce pan

- Large mixing bowl

- 1/4 cup measurement

- Spatula

- Squeezy bottle (for the syrup, maybe a funnel if you need help pouring the syrup into your bottle)

- Whisk

Step 3: Make the Dry Pancake Mixture

To make the pancake batter, first take the bicarb soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves and whisk them into the plain flour. (this saves time instead of having to sieve the flour free from lumps, and it all stays in one bowl!).

Keep whisking until there are no lumps in he flour and everything is evenly distributed.

Step 4: Make the Wet Pancake Mixture

In a large mixing bowl add the buttermilk, vanilla, egg and pumpkin and beat it together with an electric mixer (depending on how fine your puree is, you may need to mix the wet mix longer to allow it to distribute evenly.

Step 5: Mix Them All Together!

Now add the dry flour mixture into the wet mixture in very small amounts, beating after each addition. By adding the flour in small batches this prevents flour lumps in your pancakes!

Now this is optional but if you really want a jack-o- lantern orange colour, this is when you add your orange food colouring. Just look at the difference! of course this does not alter taste and if you don't want the extra orange then leave as it is.

Let the pancake mixture sit for about 5-10 minutes, this allows the gluten in the flour to relax and results in fluffier pancakes. (of course if you are in a rush then you can miss this step.

Step 6: Make the Sinful Cinnamon Syrup

In a small saucepan place the two sugars, water and vanilla and then bring it to a rolling boil on a medium high heat. Then bring it on a low heat (so that there are small bubbles forming) and let it cook for about 3-4 minutes until it thickens slightly.

At this point add your black food colouring and then pour a small amount of the sugar syrup into your cornflour and mix it around to prevent lumps, then add it to the sauce pan and bring the syrup to a quick boil again, this will thicken the syrup more.

Place the syrup aside to cool.

If you like a thinner syrup, do not add the corn flour and add more water to suit your tastes.

Step 7: Fry the Pancakes

Depending on how you like to cook your pancakes either coat the pan in butter, vegetable oil (not olive oil as it has a very strong flavour on its own) and put the pan on a medium heat. Add 1/4 cup of the pancake mixture into the pan and shape the mixture how you like it (i like making mine into rough pumpkin shapes).

Allow the pancakes to cook about 2-3 minutes on each side or until there are air bubbles forming on the surface.

Step 8: Decorate Your Pancakes

Ok so now the fun part, when you are ready to eat grab the syrup and place it into a squeezy bottle (you may need a funnel to avoid mess) and then decorate those bad boys! I like making mine into jack-olanterns, you can also draw ghosts, spiserwebs or whatever you fancy!

Then eat them all up! I really like the contrast between the orange pancake and black syrup, it is kind of creepy in the best possible way.

Happy halloween!