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Orange Pumpkin Pancakes with Black Cinnamon Syrup and Spiders

Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org

These are light and fluffy pumpkin pancakes made extra orange with food coloring and decorated for Halloween breakfast using cinnamon syrup that has been colored a dark black. I’m a bit obsessed with piping spiders onto things. Spiders scare the bejeezus out of me so it’s not surprising I turn to them at Halloween.

Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org

The pancakes are delicious, I can say this since it isn’t my recipe. The recipe comes from Noble Pig, whom I’d like to thank for being bold enough to put a whole stick of butter into the batter. They need to cook a little longer than my usual pancakes and I found they needed a slightly lower heat than I’d normally use or they’d burn before the proper amount of bubbles came to the surface.

Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org

I added twice the cinnamon to the syrup and cooked it a little longer to make sure it would be thick enough to pipe. When I took it off the heat my syrup read 213 degrees, just barely over boiling.

Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org

Pumpkin Pancakes with Cinnamon Syrup

(Recipe from Noble Pig.com, with a few small changes by Not Martha.org.)

Very Orange Spiced Pumpkin Pancakes

  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
  • 1-3/4 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 egg, separated
  • 3/4 cup milk
  • 1/2 cup pumpkin puree
  • 1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
  • orange food coloring gel

In a large bowl, flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger.

In a medium bowl, lightly beat egg yolk with a fork. Add milk, pumpkin puree and vanilla; mix well. Add melted butter. If the butter is hot, add it slowly or you will cook your egg yolk. Add a bit of the orange food coloring to the wet mixture at this point. Add more until it’s about as orange as you can stand. Stir this mixture into dry ingredients, just until combined.

In another bowl, beat egg white until stiff peaks form. Gently fold egg white into batter.

Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat and grease lightly with vegetable oil. For each pancake, spoon about 1/4 cup batter onto the hot griddle. Cook until bubbles appear on the surface and the edges look dry. Turn over and cook until golden brown. The pancakes are delicate so stick to making small or medium sized pancakes, I put cracks in a few larger ones trying to flip them over.

Black Cinnamon Syrup

  • 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
  • 1/2 brown sugar
  • 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup water
  • black food coloring gel

In a saucepan combine white sugar, brown sugar, all-purpose flour and cinnamon. Stir dry ingredients together. Add vanilla extract and water. Bring to a boil, stirring occasionally. Be really careful while boiling sugar, keep a bowl of ice water nearby just in case. As it heats squirt in a little of the black food coloring and mix in, add more until it’s as dark as can be (it doesn’t take much). Allow to boil for a few moments until the mixture has noticeably thickened. Remove from heat and allow to cool enough to put into a squirt bottle (of the ketchup style). You can make it the night before and warm it by dipping the squeeze bottle in a bowl of warm water. You might also have your pancake eaters create their own designs.

Decorate the pancakes with the syrup. By all means decorate the plate with extra syrup. I find spiders, spider webs and bats work out well. Serve with sausages, sausages are creepy looking enough on their own.

Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org

Here are some of the designs I tried that didn’t quite work as I’d envisioned, a few details, and my first trials. What I’m not showing you is the two small pancakes I meant to look like a pair of eyeballs but ended up looking like a pair of something else, if you know what I mean.

Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org
Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org
Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org
Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org

Happy Halloween!

Halloween pancakes from notmartha.org

note: This post was originally part of a Halloween foods round-up called Trick-Or-Eat, the graphics for this have been moved from the top of the post to the bottom, right here:

Trick-Or-TrEAT, NotMartha.org, spooky cave

Welcome to Not Martha’s Trick-Or-Eat post. Today, nine favorite food, craft & lifestyle bloggers await behind nine haunted houses with an array of holiday treats created just for you. At the end of this post, you will find two of these mystery houses. To join in the holiday fun, simply click on one of the buttons and you’ll be linked to the next home on the block. You can also discover all of the Trick-Or-TrEAT contributors and find direct links to their posts at Trick-Or-TrEAT. Happy Halloweening!

Whooo’s Next? To see what other Trick-Or-TrEAT hosts have cooked up for your viewing pleasure, click on one of the haunted homes below:

· comments [49] · 10-26-2009 · categories:food · halloween ·

49 responses so far ↓

  • 1 Brooke // Oct 26, 2009 at 5:14 am

    SQUEAL.of.HAPPINESS! These are BRILLIANT and FUN and ADORABLE. SO is Noble Pig. I’m so glad you found a way to include her in ToE, too.

    Yay and Hooray, Megan! So glad you joined us.

  • 2 Sacha // Oct 26, 2009 at 5:20 am

    Both of your houses link to Trick-or-Eat instead of their representative sites. Eek!

  • 3 Lori @ RecipeGirl // Oct 26, 2009 at 6:25 am

    They look good, but I’m not sure I want to eat them- scary!!

    I’ve had a tough time finding any pumpkin pancakes or waffles that I like, so perhaps this is the recipe to try!

  • 4 Juggling Frogs // Oct 26, 2009 at 8:10 am

    I don’t observe Halloween, so I’m off in search of an excuse for making these. They look fantastic! Thank you for posting them.

  • 5 Heather Bailey // Oct 26, 2009 at 8:11 am

    These look amazing! Must make spider pancakes this week.

  • 6 Rhonda Steed // Oct 26, 2009 at 8:37 am

    Holy cute!!!!

  • 7 Julie // Oct 26, 2009 at 9:23 am

    I love this idea!! I’m totally making these on Halloween morning! Thanks! I imagine the orange would work with any pancake batter… yum.

  • 8 Kay // Oct 26, 2009 at 9:24 am

    I SO know what Fiona is getting for breakfast on Halloween. I think I will stick to the spider web and not the actual spider, for fear it would be gross for her to eat (because, really, I’m not eating the spider either).

  • 9 megan // Oct 26, 2009 at 9:43 am

    Kitchen Scraps – Yes, sorry, that wasn’t in the guidelines!

    I tried pumpkin faces but couldn’t get them to work out, it kept looking like triangles on a basketball. Then again I’m also no good at carving pumpkins either.

  • 10 kitchen scraps // Oct 26, 2009 at 9:45 am

    These are totally cool! Like a blank canvas pumpkin… you could practice pumpkin faces on those pancakes.

    ** aside… can you pop your house onto the top of your post?

  • 11 megan // Oct 26, 2009 at 9:48 am

    Julie – Do be aware that the cinnamon syrup really needs the pumpkin in the pancake to balance out the flavor.

  • 12 megan // Oct 26, 2009 at 9:50 am

    Sacha – Their posts weren’t up yet when I went to sleep last night, I’m on pacific time. The links have been fixed, thank you for the heads up.

  • 13 megan // Oct 26, 2009 at 9:51 am

    Lori – I did try to make these into waffles as well and the batter was too delicate. The waffles came out floppy and ripped before I could extricate the whole thing. (You might try it though, my waffle maker is new and I’m suspicious that it doesn’t work as well as it’s supposed to.)

  • 14 Kelly // Oct 26, 2009 at 1:03 pm

    Megan, this has tipped me over into the Halloween mood, these are so perfect. And it was really great to meet you at BS!

  • 15 Seanna Lea // Oct 26, 2009 at 1:31 pm

    Very cool. I love my fluffy pancake recipe for being so light and delicious, but I will have to find a way to incorporate the pumpkin and extra color for my hubby this weekend. Even with a stick of butter this is almost certainly healthier than the pumpkin doughnuts I was planning on making!

  • 16 Ana // Oct 26, 2009 at 3:22 pm

    can you come over and make me breakfast on halloween?

    i’ll repay you with chai, i promise.

  • 17 Kevin // Oct 26, 2009 at 3:24 pm

    Those Halloween patterns are so good! I could go for some spider pumpkin pancakes. :)

  • 18 EB // Oct 26, 2009 at 6:36 pm

    Way too ridiculously cute. I’m on it!

  • 19 Cakelaw // Oct 26, 2009 at 8:37 pm

    These are very cool!

  • 20 Kim // Oct 26, 2009 at 9:55 pm

    Okay, I have done spiders, spiderwebs and bats on pumpkin cupcakes but never thought of pancakes… yummy! My kids will adore them. thank you!

  • 21 trick or eat. « Ursa Minor Industries // Oct 27, 2009 at 3:33 am

    […] or eat. October 27, 2009, 10:35 am Filed under: day-to-day, local Saw these on notmartha yesterday… Orange Pumpkin Pancakes with Black Cinnamon Syrup. Yum! (Or more like Yum, if […]

  • 22 Amanda // Oct 27, 2009 at 4:50 am

    Oh my gosh how fun are those??? I love em!

  • 23 What a great way to wake up on Halloween! | B-Movie Star // Oct 27, 2009 at 4:56 am

    […] Pumpkin pancakes and black syrup! Wow! Recipes and more designs are at Not Martha. […]

  • 24 Janine Clements // Oct 27, 2009 at 6:06 am

    Why is Halloween so much more fun in the US?Everyone really goes to town, right down to the spider decorated pancakes, which look fab. We might get one or two trick or treaters, parties are few and far between, all we seem to have are pumpkins. I’m moving stateside!

  • 25 megan // Oct 27, 2009 at 9:57 am

    Kelly – I’m so glad! Just in time, happy halloween. It was great to meet you too.

  • 26 Tori {Thoughtfully Simple} // Oct 29, 2009 at 12:16 pm

    I am so glad I found this post! I am going to rock Halloween morning now, thanks :)!

  • 27 Last minute Halloween links | Bohemian Revolution // Oct 30, 2009 at 7:49 am

    […] offered a tame little Pumpkin Spider Pancake last week: These are light and fluffy pumpkin pancakes made extra orange with food coloring and […]

  • 28 Happy Halloween! – ever kelly // Oct 30, 2009 at 5:39 pm

    […] a little longer.  I think I may need to make some of these pancakes tomorrow for breakfast (via Not Martha) just to console […]

  • 29 pumpkin pancakes « Popular News Guide // Oct 31, 2009 at 9:38 am

    […] no one would ever guess there was no dairy or sugar. Recipes free of gluten, dairy, sugar, peanut, not martha – Orange Pumpkin Pancakes with Black Cinnamon Syrup and. 6 Oct 2009. Day 6 of 31 days of pumpkin brings us to the perfect Halloween-morning breakfast : […]

  • 30 Jessica // Oct 31, 2009 at 10:21 am

    Just made these…so fun! Skipped the pancake recipe and just made orange Bisquick. Inspired me to make variations for dinner with colored crape mix and fun colored sauces! Always looking for creative things to fix for my kids!!
    Thank you!

  • 31 CarebearNJ // Oct 31, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    Didn’t try the syrup, and didn’t have food coloring, but just made the pancakes. My boyfriend and I polished off the whole batch because these were delicious with a perfect light texture! Nom nom nom! We ate them like ZOMBIES EAT BRAINS!!!!

  • 32 Erin D. // Nov 5, 2009 at 4:22 pm

    Holy wow! You are wicked fabulous with a squirt bottle, lady. These look fabulous.

  • 33 Samantha // Nov 14, 2009 at 2:48 pm

    those pancakes are about the cutest things ever. i swear.

  • 34 Spidey Cakes | For the LuLu in You // Sep 10, 2010 at 3:32 pm

    […] Preheat a skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with no stick spray. Combine eggs, buttermilk, butter, pumpkin, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Use an electric mixer to blend ingredients. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and blend with mixer until smooth. Add just a few drops of gel food coloring until you get a nice orange (it doesn’t take much). Pour or scoop the batter onto hot skillet, using approximately 1/4 cup for each pancake. When the batter stops bubbling and edges begin to harden, flip the pancakes. They should be golden brown. This will take from 1 to 2 minutes. Flip the pancakes and cook the other side for the same amount of time, until golden brown. Serve warm with syrup. Makes approximately 16 pancakes. *TIPS: 1. I used the powdered buttermilk, this way I always have some on hand – if you use the powdered – replace buttermilk with 1-1/4 cup water in the wet ingredients, and add 5 TBSP of buttermilk mix to the dry ingredients 2. My skillet makes 4 pancakes at a time, I heat my oven to about 180° and place cooked pancakes on a plate and place in oven while I cook the next batch, remove plate to add another batch to plate and place back in warm oven until all pancakes are cooked. 3. These freeze well too! Black Cinnamon Syrup (recipe from Not Martha) […]

  • 35 Big scary list of Halloween crafts, recipes and tips | Bohemian Revolution // Oct 15, 2010 at 12:47 pm

    […] Pumpkin Spider Pancake – orange pancakes with cinnamon syrup that’s colored black […]

  • 36 Pancakes decorados para Halloween | Fiestas y Cumples // Oct 20, 2010 at 2:29 am

    […] Un desayuno o merienda perfecto para Halloween . Simplemente tienes que seguir nuestra receta de pancakes o tortitas y decorarlas así de “terrorificas” con chocolate negro. Ya verás como por mucho miedo que les de no va a quedar nada en el plato… (Idea extraida de NotMartha) […]

  • 37 Halloween Pumpkin Pancakes with Black Cinnamon Syrup | TidyMom // Oct 21, 2010 at 5:46 am

    […] (recipe from Not Martha) […]

  • 38 Spooky Pancakes | Skip To My Lou // Oct 21, 2010 at 5:47 am

    […] TidyMom! Cheryl had been "dying" to make these pancakes for almost a year when she first saw the idea at notmartha.org (another awesome blog). Just think of the fun the whole family will have making […]

  • 39 Jena // Oct 21, 2010 at 7:35 am

    I can’t wait to make these with the kids…so cute!

  • 40 Stacy Lowery Pagan // Oct 21, 2010 at 11:08 am

    These sound so yummy and what fun for the kids. I would love to add them to a book that I am working on.

  • 41 Creative and homemade Halloween ideas from Megan at Not Martha.com | Haunted San Diego Blog // Oct 22, 2010 at 11:12 am

    […] Orange pumpkin pancakes with black spider syrup. The syrup is cinnamon-flavored. Yum! […]

  • 42 Amy Kirchhoff // Oct 30, 2010 at 7:28 pm

    Made these this morning. Thank you for blogging it! :)
    http://www.amytriedit.com/2010/10/pumpkin-pancakes.html

  • 43 Ellen // Dec 28, 2010 at 1:04 pm

    We loved these! I made them for Halloween breakfast this year and they were a huge hit! Though we passed on the black syrup due to hungry boys, we’ll definately be holdin on to this recipe! http://durrerce.blogspot.com/search/label/Recipes

  • 44 chris // Oct 29, 2011 at 9:02 pm

    Umm, these look pretty spooky and a bit yummy, setting off to get the bits and bobs now, looks like a fun afternoon for me :-) Thanks for the trick or treat links too, great fun ! x

  • 45 Weird Halloween (aka Scary) Food Art! | Cybercandy Blog // Oct 16, 2012 at 4:09 am

    […] a spider on your pancake first thing in the morning? We found this awesome recipe in the Not Martha archives for fluffy pumpkin pancakes with extra orange and extra spider, just for good […]

  • 46 Pumpkin Carving & Halloween Recipes | // Nov 17, 2012 at 3:43 pm

    […] my usual pancake recipe, but this time I added a bit of green food coloring to the batter. I made black cinnamon syrup to go along with them. I didn’t have black food coloring on hand so I used purple and turned […]

  • 47 25 Family-Friendly Halloween Traditions! | One Good Thing by Jillee // Oct 13, 2013 at 12:26 am

    […] Photo from Not […]

  • 48 Orange Pumpkin Pancakes with Black Cinnamon Syrup and Spiders… // Oct 19, 2013 at 5:59 pm

    […] Orange Pumpkin Pancakes with Black Cinnamon Syrup and Spiders Zombie Head Cheese Tentacle Pot Pie […]

  • 49 Monday Motivation: Halloween Breakfast | Alana Jones-Mann // Oct 28, 2013 at 6:00 am

    […] Pumpkin Fudge Brownie Pancakes from Half Baked Harvest // 2. Spiderweb and Bat Pancakes from Not Martha // 3. Pumpkin Pop-tarts from Babble // 4. Baked Eyeball Eggs from Betty Crocker // 5. Ghost […]

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