Pumpkin Pancakes

Full sugaring. The rhythm: collect at dawn, boil by eight, tend the fire all day, clean up at dusk. My body protests — the left leg, the back, the knees that have an increasingly vocal opinion about standing for nine hours on a concrete floor. I listen to the protests. I file them under "noted" and continue. The sap doesn't care about my knees. The sap runs on its own schedule, and I run on the sap's schedule, and the hierarchy is clear: trees first, syrup second, my knees third.

David came Saturday with Teddy. The boy is eight now and he carried the collection bucket — the real one this time, not the small child-sized one. He's tall enough and strong enough and serious enough. He poured sap into the collection tank and looked at me with the look that boys have when they've done a man's thing and want confirmation. I nodded. That was enough. A nod is a paragraph in Bergstrom.

I made maple cream — the spread, not the pie. You boil syrup past the candy stage, to about 234 degrees, then cool it and stir it until it crystallizes into a smooth, pale, spreadable cream that's pure maple flavor in concentrated form. You put it on toast. You put it on biscuits. You eat it from the jar with a spoon when nobody's watching, and somebody is always watching, and you don't care because maple cream from your own trees eaten from a jar with a spoon at midnight is one of life's great pleasures and I will not be shamed for it.

The blog post was about the sugaring process — the same post I write every March, updated, refined, the same way the sugaring itself is the same but refined. The annual readers expect it. The new readers discover it. Twenty-five comments this week. A man in Oregon who's never seen a sugar maple asked if he could make syrup from Douglas fir. The answer is no. But I admired his ambition.

Three gallons so far, with two weeks of season left. The sap is running well. The freeze-thaw cycle is cooperative. The trees are generous. The sugarhouse is alive with steam and fire and the smell that is March, that is Vermont, that is the thing I was put on earth to do, which I realize is a large claim for a man standing over a boiling pan in a wooden building his grandfather built, but I stand by it. Some people are meant to write symphonies. Some people are meant to perform surgery. I was meant to turn sap into syrup in a sugarhouse in Vermont. That's my thing. It's enough.

After a Saturday like that one — Teddy hauling the real bucket, the sugarhouse full of steam, three gallons and counting — there’s a Sunday morning that follows, and that Sunday morning deserves a proper breakfast. I made a stack of pumpkin pancakes with the last of the fall’s canned puree, and I put the maple cream on the table next to the syrup, and I let Teddy choose. He took both. Smart kid. These pancakes are built for maple cream: the spice and the sweetness meet in the right way, and the whole thing tastes like the season you worked for.

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

Ingredients

1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Butter or neutral oil, for the griddle
Maple cream or pure maple syrup, for serving

Instructions

Combine the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves until evenly combined.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, buttermilk, eggs, melted butter, and vanilla until smooth and uniform.
Make the batter. 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.
Rest the batter. Let the batter sit for 5 minutes while you heat the griddle. This gives the leaveners time to activate and results in a lighter pancake.
Heat the griddle. Warm a cast-iron skillet or nonstick griddle over medium heat. Add a small pat of butter or a light coating of oil and let it heat until shimmering but not smoking.
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 brown, about 1 to 2 minutes more.
Keep warm and repeat. Transfer finished pancakes to a baking sheet in a 200°F oven to stay warm while you cook the remaining batter. Wipe the griddle between batches as needed.
Serve. Stack and serve immediately with a generous spoonful of maple cream and, if you like, a drizzle of warm pure maple syrup alongside.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pumpkin Pancakes — The Perfect Stack for Maple Cream Season