Earthy Edibles: Poorhouse pumpkin pancakes

Gluten-Free Pumpkin Pancakes

Like many students in Victoria, I am utterly unemployed and faltering in my attempts to find a job now that finals are upon us. Complaining about my situation to my mother on the phone the other day, she countered with one of her perspicuous comments that seem to surface in times of need. She told me that one of her clearest memories of university is of being unemployed and having time to soak everything in. It was around the middle of November, and her neighbours had given her a few pumpkins post-Halloween. Despite being a poor student, she made pies out of all of the pumpkins and gave them to friends and neighbours.

While these pancakes were not extended to my neighbours, they were made out of a free pumpkin I was given at the grocery store. Apparently it was too ugly for anyone to buy, but it still made some bang-up pancakes.

Serves four generously

Prep time five minutes, cook time 20 minutes

Note: These pancakes are pretty forgiving as far as flour goes. Use your favourite mix of flours. The gluten-free flours I like best for this kind of thing are white/brown rice, millet, oat, sorghum, amaranth, and tapioca starch. Be careful not to use too much of stronger-flavoured flours like amaranth, buckwheat, chickpea, or other bean flours.  

 

Ingredients

2 cups gluten-free flour mix (I used ½ cup tapioca starch, ¾ cups brown rice flour, and ¾ cups oat flour)

4 tbsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tbsp pumpkin pie spice blend (recipe below)

½ tsp salt

1 cup pumpkin (canned, or roasted and purŽed from fresh)

1 ½ cups milk

2 eggs

2 tbsp cooking oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

 

Pumpkin Pie Spice Blend

1 tbsp cinnamon

¾ tsp ground allspice

Scant ½ tsp ground cloves

1 ½ tsp ground ginger

 

Directions

In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices, and salt. Add the sugar and mix thoroughly with a whisk.

In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, and mix in the rest of the wet ingredients. Next, make a well in the center of the flour mix, pour in the wet ingredients, and mix thoroughly.

Heat a lightly oiled frying pan over medium heat. Pour approximately ¼ cup of batter into the pan per pancake, or whatever amount you like. Lightly brown both sides and serve hot with maple syrup.