Apple Spice Pancakes

One of my favorite brunch dishes ever are the apple pancakes at Jinky's Café in Los Angeles . Now that I don't live there anymore I've had to try to recreate them at home. Even when I'm lazy and make pancakes from a mix I still add the spices below – they are so good I don't need any syrup on them! You can serve these pancakes without the baked apples – but they are delicious! I use ½ whole wheat flour just to make them a little bit healthier, but you can use all purpose flour only.

What's odd about these pancakes? They're shaped like chickens! I love my chicken pancake mold!

Combine Dry Ingredients:

• ¾ cup whole wheat flour
• ¾ cup all purpose flour
• 4 Tbl brown sugar
• 1 ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• ¼ tsp each of allspice, nutmeg, ground cloves and ground ginger
• (or 1 tsp pumpkin pie spice)

Mix these dry ingredient with a fork in a large bowl. Add wet ingredients below to the bowl and gently whisk together, mixing just until combined.

• 1 ½ cup milk
• 2 eggs
• 3 Tbl melted butter
• ½ tsp vanilla

For extra fluffiness you can separate the whites from the yolks and beat them until they are stiff but not dry and add them last.

Pour about ¼ to a 1/3 cup batter onto a hot griddle – cook until bubbles form on top (some will pop) and flip over, cooking till both sides are golden brown.

Baked Apples:

Slice and skin an apple per person. Lightly spray a glass baking dish (size depends on how many apples you're baking) and spread apple slices on it. Sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon and bake at 350 degrees until apples are soft (10 to 15 minutes).

Spoon apples over pancakes and enjoy. Serve some chicken apple sausage on the side to make it even better!