Here’s a delicious, healthy Fall recipe you can make this weekend, courtesy of my sister-in-law Meg and her husband Russell! Originally posted in 2014, the post and recipe have been updated a bit. 

Over the past two years we have both had great success following Paleo-like diets off and on, especially when my sister-in-law originally lost 10 pounds in one month.  Since then, she and her now husband have evolved their eating style, maintaining a healthy balance which often includes Paleo friendly recipes.  We’ve made a lot of omelets and frittatas in the past, but now that the leaves are falling and the air is crisp, we wanted to cook something that reflected the fall season. And what better than a warm stack of fall themed pumpkin pancakes?

We struggled to find a recipe that was fluffy and tasty enough to stand up to a regular pancake. Some of our first batches, while tasty, left us with results that we could only describe as “scrambled pancakes”. We thought we were cooking them wrong because they were so crumbly and dense. To remedy this, we tried cooking them at a lower heat for a longer time, we tried different types of flour, and different wet and dry ingredients but couldn’t replicate the consistency of the traditional pancakes we grew up with. After scouring the web and trying parts from numerous recipes, we finally figured it out. Baking soda. Not all Paleo recipes call for baking soda, which is one of the things that makes these pancakes so fluffy and DELICIOUS!

Paleo Pumpkin Pancake Recipe

Ingredients:

2 large eggs

½ cup pumpkin puree

2 tablespoons of sugar free syrup

½ teaspoon allspice

½ teaspoon cinnamon

⅔ cup almond flour

a dash of kosher or sea salt

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon baking soda

½ cup pecans

Instructions:

• Heat a small skillet over medium heat with a touch of coconut oil. Add pecans. Toast for about 3 minutes or until pecans are fragrant. Be careful not to burn the pecans – shake the skillet frequently. (Note – these are for the topping. Feel free to leave them raw if desired or not use them at all).

• In a large mixing bowl, whisk together eggs, pumpkin, syrup, cinnamon, allspice, and vanilla until well blended.

• In a separate bowl, mix together the almond flour, salt and baking soda.

• Stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, making sure there are no lumps.

• Lightly grease a griddle with your fat of choice (we used coconut oil) and turn on medium heat until a drop of water sizzles on the griddle.

• Pour the batter onto the griddle in whatever size pancakes you like. Cook until bubbles form on the top of the batter. Carefully flip and cook the other side.

• Stack and top with pecans and sugar free syrup (or whatever fun fall toppings you choose!). We also dusted ours with a bit of cinnamon.

*Note – you will see in the picture we served these with bacon (which makes every meal better). During our Paleo challenge, we learned that most bacon you can find at the grocery store is cured in sugar. We recommend Organic Sunday Bacon by Applegate which has less sugar than most and is cured in Paleo friendly, organic cane sugar.

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