Classic Pumpkin Pancakes

Full maple season. The grove is running well this year — the trees are healthy after years of care and the weather has cooperated, proper freeze-thaw cycles keeping the sap moving. I've been in the sugar house every day, the routines that the season demands. Collection, boiling, filtering, grading, bottling. There's a discipline to maple work that I find genuinely satisfying: the season tells you what to do and you do it.

The second vaccine shot was last week. The full series, the protocol completed. I won't pretend it changed anything immediately — I know the science, I know the timelines — but there's a psychological completion to having the second one that the first didn't fully provide. Something finished that was unfinished.

I've been getting more mail. The blog has grown through the pandemic year, the readership finding something in the writing that I didn't fully intend when I started. I got a letter — actual physical letter, handwritten — from an older man in Maine who said he'd been reading since last spring and that the posts about cooking alone had helped him through his wife's illness. She died in January. He wrote to say thank you. I sat with that letter for a long time before I wrote back.

There's a community forming around this writing that I didn't anticipate. Widowers, mostly older, mostly men who found themselves in kitchens they hadn't fully occupied before. They write to say: you described something I didn't have words for. I write back. It takes more time than I expected and I find I don't want to stop.

The letter from Maine has been sitting on my desk since I answered it, and I keep finding myself thinking about what it means to feed people — not just physically, but through words, through presence, through the ordinary rituals that make a day feel held. With the sugar house running full tilt and fresh syrup ready to bottle, I wanted to make something that let the maple do what maple does best: turn something simple into something worth slowing down for. These pumpkin pancakes have been my weekend anchor this season, and I’ve been making a stack big enough to share — even when sharing just means writing to a stranger in Maine and knowing he might make them too.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4 (about 12 pancakes)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup pure pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the pan
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Pure maple syrup, for serving

Instructions

Combine dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves until evenly combined.
Mix wet ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the buttermilk, pumpkin puree, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract until smooth and uniform.
Make the batter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until just combined. A few small lumps are fine — do not overmix or the pancakes will toughen.
Rest the batter. Let the batter sit undisturbed for 5 minutes while you heat the pan. This allows the leavening to activate and gives you a lighter pancake.
Heat the pan. Place a non-stick skillet or griddle over medium heat. Add a small pat of butter and let it melt, swirling to coat the surface. The butter should foam but not brown.
Cook the pancakes. Pour approximately 1/4 cup of batter per pancake onto the skillet. Cook until bubbles form across the surface and the edges look set, about 2 to 3 minutes. Flip carefully and cook the second side until golden and cooked through, about 1 to 2 minutes more.
Keep warm and repeat. Transfer finished pancakes to a baking sheet in a 200°F oven to keep warm. Continue cooking the remaining batter, adding butter to the pan between batches as needed.
Serve. Stack the pancakes and serve immediately with a generous pour of pure maple syrup.

Nutrition (per serving)

Classic Pumpkin Pancakes — Something Sweet for the People Who Write Back