This pumpkin pancake recipe is so easy, fast, and perfect for Fall!

Pumpkin pancakes are definitely a favorite in our house and our oldest, Alina, has been BEGGING my husband to make her these for weeks now. It’s one of our special little fall traditions to make start making pumpkin flavored meals/goodies, and even at just 4 years old, she remembered it was coming! During October, we also like to use some fun Halloween cookie cutters to involve the kids and let them create some fun characters. My 3 toddlers LOVE them (and there’s no added sugar)! WIN!

No added sugar= no parent guilt for us! Ya feel me?

If you follow us on Instagram, you know my husband, Maika, is the one who really enjoys cooking in our family. Since we were pregnant with our first daughter, he would say he couldn’t wait to cook and bake with our kids. His dream in retirement is to be surrounded by his kids and grandkids who all want to come to our house because “Grandpa” is the best chef around! He’s honestly dying to take a legit cooking course. All that being said, I have to give him credit for finding (and modifying) this recipe. It’s ALL HIM- I just threw in the cookie cutter idea!

Some quick background on why we use the ingredients we do:

Our oldest daughter seemed to be really affected by sugar when she was little, even with just high sugar content fruits, like strawberries. Another one of our daughters had some gut/skin issues as a baby, so, very early on, we just learned to cook/bake the kids’ food without any added sugar and by using mostly organic ingredients whenever possible. Maika came up with the following recipe using honey instead of sugar, but feel free to add sugar if you still feel like you/your kids need it. 😉

Toddler Approved Pumpkin Pancake Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• pinch of salt
• 1 Tbsp honey
• 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 Tbsp melted butter or avocado oil
• 1/2 cup milk (almond, coconut, 2%, whole, etc)
• 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 tsp pumpkin spice
• *you can add some cinnamon or nutmeg to taste/preference, but our kids usually like to just sprinkle the cinnamon on top or on the greek yogurt we often serve with them

When I tell you this is simple, I mean it! He just throws all these ingredients in a bowl, mixes them all together, and drops about a tablespoon of batter in the pan for each pancake, in order to make small ones for their little fingers. Cook so pancakes are lightly browned on each side. This makes about 12 small pancakes, which works perfect with the three kids. They just gobble these up!

Making them extra fun…

When we feel like getting more creative, we just use bigger spoonfuls of batter and let the kids cut out their Halloween shapes with the cookie cutters after we’ve already made the pancakes. Then, they can decorate with whatever fruit we have on hand. A couple “cheats” we use as parents is to provide them with alternatives to what most people would initially think to use. Obviously they taste much better with chocolate and real sprinkles, but we usually substitute the chocolate drizzle for a normal dose size amount of kids elderberry syrup (immunity boosting-but use your own parental judgement), instead of sprinkles, we use chia seeds, and instead of whipped cream, we provide some greek yogurt. We’ll even “dye” the yogurt with different berries to give them color options for decorating little monsters if we’re really feeling fancy!

I hope your littles enjoy these as much as mine do! We’d love to hear if they do, so please comment below or follow and DM us on Instagram: @themushies!

Happy Halloween!

XOXO,

Cherie