Pumpkin Spice Pancakes Recipe

If you love all things pumpkin spice, then you are going to love this pumpkin spice pancakes recipe! Made with fall’s star ingredient, pumpkin puree, and the warm blend of pumpkin pie spices, these tender and fluffy pancakes are the perfect seasonal breakfast item to make this weekend!

Pumpkin pancake recipe

I originally created this pumpkin spice pancakes recipe back in 2014. I remember that pumpkin spice everything was all the trend at the time. 

While the famous pumpkin spice latte, affectionately referred to as the PSL, had been around for at least a decade by that point, the flavor’s popularity hadn’t spread like wildfire until 2010 and beyond. 

Nowadays, you can find pumpkin spice in almost everything when September rolls around. Did you know they even make pumpkin spice goldfish crackers? Yeah, and they’re actually tasty!

I figured this recipe needed a refresher, with some new photos and an update on the actual recipe ingredients, as I’ve tweaked it a bit since I originally posted it. 

How can I spice up my pancake mix? can I add pumpkin spice to pancake mix?

These pumpkin spice pancakes utilize canned pumpkin purée and pumpkin pie spice seasoning to give them their seasonal twist, compared to classic butter pancakes. 

That said, if you are trying to doctor up a mix and make pumpkin spice pancakes with Bisquick, I’ve seen people do that by simply replacing the flour in the recipe with Bisquick and skipping the baking powder and salt. 

That’s because Bisquick is more of a general baking mix and would still need some of the added sugar from this recipe.

If you’re making pumpkin spice pancakes with pancake mix, like the kind they sell at Williams-Sonoma that’s specifically made for pancakes, then you can probably skip the added sugar in this recipe as those typically contain sugar in them already. 

I hardly buy store-bought mixes because I honestly don’t make pancakes at home that often. They’re a special treat in my house, so I figure that when I do make them, I’ll do them from scratch.

Plus, pancakes are not hard to make at all; it’s a one-bowl kind of recipe that uses basic pantry and fridge ingredients like flour, eggs, milk, salt, baking powder and baking soda, vanilla extract, and sugar (white or brown sugar).

Normally, you may add some vegetable oil or butter to moisten the pancake mix. In this case, the pumpkin purée helps replace the need for oil or butter. 

When the pancakes are done, all they really need is a drizzle of maple syrup and you’ll be swooning over how deliciously moist and fluffy these pumpkin spice pancakes are!

Why are restaurant pancakes so fluffy?

While a good recipe is always necessary to create fluffy pancakes, I think the real secret lies in how you mix your batter and how you cook it. 

Assuming you’ve got a great pancake recipe (your batter should be nice and thick), then you want to have a really gentle hand when you’re actually mixing in the wet ingredients. 

What should you avoid when mixing pancake batter?

More often that not, in an effort to mix out lumps after adding the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, people over-whisk their pancake batter. While you do want to mix out large lumps, small lumps in pancake batter are completely fine and favored over over-mixing the batter. 

This technique is true about most baked goods, including muffins and cakes. The more you mix, the more likely you are to end up with a dense baked good. 

It’s also important that when you cook the pancakes in your skillet or on a griddle, you don’t fidget around with them or press down on them with your spatula. Sometimes people do this in their impatience to get the pancakes to cook faster, and it’ll cause your pancakes to lose those nice little air bubbles that form inside them and become too flat. 

 Tips for Making Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

Summarizing some of the tips shared above and sharing a few ingredient swaps below, here are my suggestions when making this delicious fall breakfast of pumpkin pancakes:

• Don’t over-mix your batter. Little lumps in your batter are fine. 
• If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice on hand, you can use 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg, and 1/8 tsp ground cloves per teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice. 
• Make sure you’re using pumpkin purée and not pumpkin pie filling. 
• Keep your pancakes warm as you make them by storing in your oven on the warm setting on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper.
• After you get your pan hot over medium heat, lower your flame to medium-low or low when you’re actually cooking your pancakes. This will give you more evenly cooked pancakes.
• Don’t move around the pancake or press down on it with your spatula while it’s cooking. You should only be using the spatula to flip the pancake once, and then remove from the pan. 
• Use a sharp-edged spatula to help you flip the pancakes more easily. 
• Store excess pancakes in an airtight container or in a ziplock bag in the freezer, and either microwave or gently reheat in a toaster oven when ready to enjoy again.