Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

Ah pancakes.  Dessert masquerading as breakfast, or lunch, or evening dinner.  What’s not to love?

Pancakes are already delicious on their own but what if we combine them with another breakfast-dessert - Cinnamon Rolls! 

For this recipe, I took my favorite fluffy pancake recipe, added a delicious brown sugar & cinnamon swirl, and then topped them off with a cream cheese frosting drizzle - delish!

Dude told me he wanted all his pancakes to be cinnamon roll pancakes forever.  I have to say, that’s one of the best recipe reviews I’ve had in a long time!

This recipe also fits in neatly with this month’s Cook the Books Club pick. Bite by Bite: Nourishments and Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Ugh...I really wanted to love this book.

Small vignettes centered around food? Sign me up!

But essays and poetry were promised and the book just...wasn't.

The vignettes rarely featured poetry and usually centered around memories and/or the author's heritage, but just as often were just a bunch of facts about a certain fruit and its usage through history which read like a fairly dry textbook and was a bite of a bore.

I'd say the book did manage to celebrate food and culture, but it just wasn't my cup of tea.
View all my reviews

While this sort of compilation is not my typical style, I could appreciate that each chapter was inspired by a food.  The cinnamon chapter was an informational chapter that read more like a textbook than some of the other chapters that were centered around the author’s memories or musings.  It was interesting enough and a great inspiration for these pancakes!

Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

Inspired by Laura Fuentes

Pancakes

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1 teaspoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 ½ cups milk

1 egg

¼ cup butter, melted

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cinnamon Filling

¼ cup butter, melted

½ cup brown sugar, packed

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Cream Cheese Frosting

1 ounce cream cheese, softened

1 tablespoon butter, softened

½ cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To make the pancake batter, whisk the dry ingredients together in a large bowl.  

In a separate bowl, whisk together the butter and egg.  Once combined, whisk in the milk and vanilla.  

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry.

Meanwhile, make the cinnamon filling.  Mix together filling ingredients and load into a piping bag.  Snip the very bottom off the piping bag to make a small hole.

Then make the cream cheese frosting.  Mix together the softened butter and cream cheese until smooth.  Stir in the powdered sugar and vanilla.  If the powdered sugar won’t easily incorporate, microwave in 10 second increments to soften the frosting. Load into a piping bag.  Snip the very bottom off the piping bag to make a small hole.

Heat an electric skillet over medium heat and grease with butter.  Spoon ¼ cup batter onto the hot skillet.  Pipe a swirl of cinnamon filling onto the pancakes.  Cook until bubbles rise to the top on the pancakes.  Once the bubbles stop,  flip and cook for another minute or until the bottom is lightly browned.

Wipe down the skillet to remove sugar and add more butter before making additional pancakes.

Serve topped with cream cheese frosting.