Apple Cinnamon Pancakes

Two years of writing this. Two years of hotdish and corn and the grief that comes in waves — not the crashing waves of the first year but the gentle, persistent waves of the second, the kind that don't knock you down but keep your feet wet, keep reminding you that the tide was here once and left its mark. The farm is gone. That sentence hasn't changed. What's changed is me. I'm not the woman who flinched at it anymore. I'm the woman who says it like a fact, which it is, and then makes dinner, which I do.

Two years of recipes: tater tot hotdish, chicken and dumplings, pot roast, pork tenderloin sandwiches, forty quarts of canning, five hundred Christmas cookies, and one ear of backyard Bodacious corn that tasted like home. Two years of feeding a family that keeps growing — not in number but in complexity. Noah is twelve and building robots. Emma is nine and writing advice columns. Jack is seven and farming a suburban backyard. Kevin is thirty-nine and still grilling in a parka. Dad is sixty-seven and recovering from bypass surgery. Mom is sixty-six and holding everything together with knitting needles and cinnamon rolls.

I made a celebratory dinner. Not for the anniversary — nobody celebrates blog anniversaries with dinner — but for the fact that we're all still here. Still eating. Still cooking. Still reaching for the plate. Pork tenderloin roast, the good cut, rubbed with garlic and rosemary, seared and roasted to a pink center. Roasted asparagus because it's nearly spring and asparagus is the first sign. Mashed potatoes because mashed potatoes are eternal. Apple pie because Kevin loves apple pie and I love Kevin and the pie is the intermediary.

After dinner, I sat on the deck with coffee. The air smelled like thawing earth. The backyard was bare and brown but underneath the brown, in the soil that Jack tested with his pH meter and amended with his compost, there was potential. Dormant, not dead. Waiting, not gone. The farm is gone but the soil is everywhere, and if you pay attention — if you really pay attention — you can hear it getting ready. For the seeds. For the water. For the hands that press the kernels in. Spring is coming. The soil knows. The Webers know. We always know.

The apple pie I made that night wasn’t really about pie — it was about Kevin, about us, about still being the kind of people who bake things for each other after two hard years. The next morning, with the last of the filling still on the counter and Jack already checking on his compost, I made these apple cinnamon pancakes. Same apples, same cinnamon, same instinct: feed the people you love something warm before the day gets away from you. The pie was the celebration. The pancakes were the exhale.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4 (about 8 pancakes)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 medium apple (such as Honeycrisp or Gala), peeled and finely diced (about 1 cup)
Butter or neutral oil, for the griddle
Maple syrup and powdered sugar, for serving

Instructions

Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt until evenly combined.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract until smooth.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until just combined — a few lumps are fine. Do not overmix or the pancakes will be tough.
Fold in the apple. Gently fold in the diced apple until evenly distributed throughout the batter.
Heat the griddle. Heat a large nonstick skillet or griddle over medium heat. Add a small pat of butter or a light swipe of oil and let it melt and shimmer.
Cook the pancakes. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter per pancake onto the griddle. Cook until bubbles form across the surface and the edges look set, about 2 to 3 minutes. Flip and cook the second side until golden brown, 1 to 2 minutes more. Adjust heat as needed between batches.
Serve warm. Stack and serve immediately with maple syrup and a dusting of powdered sugar. A pat of butter between the layers never hurt anyone.

Nutrition (per serving)

Apple Cinnamon Pancakes — The Morning After We Remembered We’re Still Here