Generally, if anyone makes breakfast for the family, it’s my awesome spouse. I’m, well…  I’m not exactly a morning person and am much better left sipping my coffee alone in a corner when it’s breakfast-making time. This means, among other things, I am not the one who officially knows how to make pancakes. This weekend, however, said awesome spouse is out of town, and I wanted to make something while the kids obsessively used up all their allotted screen time** before breakfast. So I made pancakes, but weird enough pancakes that they didn’t need to compete directly with “real” pancakes.***

Inspired, as so often happens, by Smitten Kitchen, I made apple almond pancakes instead. My kids even ate them!

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or sprouted spelt flour)
• 1/2 cup almonds or ground almonds or almond flour (or hazelnut flour!)
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp apple pie spice**** (or cinnamon)
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/2 cups buttermilk (or 1 cup yogurt mixed with 1/2 cup milk)
• 2 – 3 apples, coarsely grated
• butter, for frying

If you’re starting with whole, raw almonds, roast them in a 300ºF oven for about 10 minutes, take them out when they begin to smell delicious. Grind the almonds with 1/2 cup of the flour in a food processor until the mixture resembles coarse flour.

Whisk together the flour, almonds, and remaining dry ingredients in a medium bowl. In a separate container, whisk together the buttermilk and eggs, then fold them into the dry ingredients, then fold in the grated apple. You should have a thick batter that seems like it’s about half apple.

Heat a cast iron skillet, or griddle, to medium hot, add a pat of butter, and fry the pancakes in batches. They’ll be thick! Spread them out a bit with the ladle so they’re not too thick. Mine ended up ~1/2 inch and took 3-5 minutes per side to cook through.

Serve with cider syrup, or whatever other deliciousness you have on hand.

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* OK, not really “alone” as “temporarily home without my spouse and co-parent, but with two kids and a housemate”

**Which is an hour each on weekend days, which they almost never in parallel

***”Real” pancakes at my house are, for the record, super delicious multi-grain pancakes with hot berries on top. Super delicious.

****Yes, I actually use apple pie spice blend. Penzey’s has a really nice one that tastes great with most things apple and is easier and faster than adding the separate components. I find myself reaching for it fairly often.