Give Your Pancake Recipe a Fall Makeover with Applesauce
Do I love classic buttermilk pancakes any time of year? Yes. Will I take any excuse to transform a basic recipe into a seasonal, fall-inspired one? Also yes. Which is why I love pancakes in the fall so much.
Pancakes are the perfect blank canvas to play with — heck, we’ve created everything from spicy avocado pancakes to fluffy ricotta pancakes from them!
But upgrading a dish doesn’t have to be complicated — and with pancakes, you don’t even need to start from scratch. My favorite pancake upgrade, in fact, starts with a box of store-bought mix. Store mix + egg + milk + applesauce = a delicious breakfast experience perfect for brisk fall mornings. Grab your flannel shirt and your maple syrup and let me show you how it’s done.
How to Make Shortcut Applesauce Pancakes
Here’s what I do if I’m making pancakes for two: Whisk together a cup of Bisquick, a large egg, a half cup of cinnamon applesauce (any variety will work — and homemade would be fantastic), a quarter cup of milk (dairy or non-dairy), and several dashes of ground cinnamon. I also like to add a tablespoon or two of dark brown sugar and a pinch of kosher salt, which helps bring out the apple and cinnamon flavors, but that’s optional. I came up with this ratio based on this recipe from Betty Crocker, and it works really well.
You could, of course, use pumpkin pie spice or apple pie spice instead of cinnamon, and then you’d really be giving these the full fall treatment, but cinnamon is what I most often have on hand.
Then it’s time to break out the griddle or pan! If you have a preferred method — butter or oil, low heat or high heat — use it. I personally melt a bit of coconut oil in a large nonstick skillet until it shimmers, turn down the heat to medium-low, add three ladlefuls of batter, and let ’em cook until I see bubbles. Then I flip and let the bottoms brown.
Once you’ve got everything cooked, stack ’em up and serve them warm, with butter and maple syrup. Or go all out and garnish with chopped apples and more cinnamon, and maybe a dollop of yogurt. Yum.
I’ve only ever made my applesauce pancakes with Bisquick, but pancake recipes tend to be flexible, so it should work with other pancake mixes, or any easy recipe. Applesauce adds moisture to pancakes, so it can replace the oil or melted butter in a pancake recipe one-to-one. If your mix or recipe doesn’t call for fat (Bisquick’s doesn’t), you can also replace some of the milk with applesauce. Give it a try and let me know what you think!