Caramel Chip Pumpkin Pancakes

The summer reading program launched on Saturday, and the library was full of children in a way that makes my heart expand — literally, physically, I feel my chest open when I see a child reach for a book with both hands like it is something precious, which it is. We had 147 sign-ups on the first day, which is our second-highest ever, and I allowed myself a small, internal celebration that nobody saw because I am a woman who processes triumph the same way I process grief: privately, thoroughly, while standing in a kitchen.

James finished his sophomore year on Friday. His grades are excellent — all A's except a B+ in chemistry, which he blames on "the lab partner situation" and which I suspect is simply that James is a words person living in a numbers world for forty-five minutes a day. He will be sixteen in October. I am not ready for this. I was not ready when he was ten, either, or five, or the moment the nurse put him in my arms in 1999 and I realized that the word "mother" was no longer an abstraction. It was a person. It was me.

Robert and I went to Dr. Ellis on Thursday and she said something that has stayed with me: "Trust is not rebuilt in grand gestures. It's rebuilt in the accumulation of ordinary moments where betrayal was possible and didn't happen." I wrote it down in the journal Carrie gave me. I have been filling that journal slowly, one observation at a time, the way you fill a pot with water from a slow tap. The pot fills eventually. So, I hope, does the journal. So, I hope, does the trust.

I made Mama's sweet potato pie this week — not for any occasion, just because the sweet potatoes at the market looked right and because I needed to use my hands for something that wasn't shelving books or signing documents or typing emails. Sweet potato pie is a Southern dessert that gets confused with pumpkin pie by people who don't know better, and the difference is fundamental: pumpkin pie is about spice, but sweet potato pie is about the potato itself — its natural sweetness, its density, its willingness to become something soft and warm and sustaining. Mama's recipe uses cinnamon and nutmeg but not too much of either, because the sweet potato doesn't need to be disguised. It needs to be heard.

Carrie finished eighth grade and will be in high school next year. She is thirteen and already the most self-possessed person in this house, which is a household that includes a forty-nine-year-old attorney and a forty-five-year-old librarian. When I was thirteen, I was hiding in a parsonage closet reading novels. Carrie at thirteen is writing in journals and researching foreign countries and asking questions I don't have answers to. She is going to leave one day — not just for college but for somewhere far and different — and I can feel it the way you feel weather changing before you see the clouds.

Carrie’s eighth grade ending left me sitting with that particular ache of watching someone you love grow toward a horizon you can’t follow them to — something sweet and heavy all at once, like the sweet potato pie I’d been thinking about all week. But the morning after her last day of school, she wandered into the kitchen before I’d had my coffee and asked if we could make something together, something that smelled like fall even though it was June, and I thought: yes, exactly that. These caramel chip pumpkin pancakes were what happened next — close enough to the flavors I’d been carrying around in my chest, and easy enough that a thirteen-year-old who is already smarter than me could take the lead.

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 light brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 cup buttermilk, shaken
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/2 cup caramel chips
Neutral oil or butter, for the griddle
Warm maple syrup and extra caramel chips, for serving

Instructions

Whisk the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger until evenly combined. Set aside.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla extract until smooth and uniform in color.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until just combined — a few lumps are fine and expected. Do not overmix. Fold in the caramel chips. Let the batter rest for 5 minutes while the griddle heats.
Heat the griddle. Heat a large nonstick skillet or griddle over medium heat. Lightly grease with oil or a small pat of butter. The surface is ready when a drop of water skips and evaporates on contact.
Cook the pancakes. Pour approximately 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 and cooked through, 1 to 2 minutes more. Adjust heat as needed between batches — medium to medium-low works best to prevent the caramel chips from scorching.
Keep warm and serve. Transfer finished pancakes to a baking sheet in a 200°F oven to stay warm while you finish the remaining batter. Serve in stacks with warm maple syrup and a scatter of extra caramel chips over the top.

Nutrition (per serving)

Caramel Chip Pumpkin Pancakes — When the Sweet Potato’s Cousin Comes to the Table