ArcaMax

Spooky Times

Halloween is hands down my favorite holiday. I used to celebrate big. We’d invite about 70-80 people to dinner and dancing (we had a big house then and we hired a DJ).

I’d make 13 courses. Starting off we’d have five or six appetizers in the bar area. Can you say blue cheese stuffed olives floating in vodka? We’d call those eyeballs.

Then I’d serve a buffet that went along a theme. The theme would match our costumes. So the year my husband and I went as Rhett and Scarlett from Gone with the Wind we served southern food.

The dessert buffet might have a cake covered in an icing spiderweb with candy spiders. One year I did a cake that was a red velvet cake and it had a hand coming out of the top of the cake.

You get the idea.

This year will be a calmer Halloween celebrated with all things pumpkin, so I thought you might enjoy this recipe for pumpkin pancakes. If you decide to drizzle them with syrup, take it easy on the sugar level.

Here, also is my Halloween greeting for you. Share this with your children and if they are older they can share it with their little gobblins too.

Cheers,
Happy Halloween!
Zola and the ZTeam

Ingredients:

2 cups of almond flour (look for this in the health food section of the grocery store)
4 eggs
½ cup of water
¼ tsp of grated sea salt
3 packets of Truvia (stevia)
3 tsp of pumpkin pie spice
2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of baking soda
1 cup of pumpkin pie puree (the stuff from the can works great)
coconut oil or butter for cooking

Instructions:

Put all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Mix with your electric mixer on medium high for a full 30 seconds. Scrape the bowl and mix a bit again.

Many pancake experts recommend you let the pancake mix sit for 15 minutes before you make the pancakes. This allows the active ingredients to do their job. I let this batter sit, too.

Then just before grilling the pancakes I gave it one more five-second swirl with my electric mixer.

You have a couple of options for grilling. I used my electric fry pan. That’s my favorite or you can do them on your stove. Electric fry pan temp should be 400 degrees. On the stove medium-medium high.

First batch I did with coconut oil. Works great. Second batch I did with butter. Works equally as well. Your choice.

The batter with be a bit thicker than regular pancake batter. When I put the batter on the surface I had to nudge it around a little to help it spread. You could add a bit more water if you want your batter thinner.

The pancakes will not bubble like normal ones so just watch for them to be golden brown on the bottom and then gently flip them. They do puff up like regular pancakes.

Leftovers can keep in zipper bags in the refrigerator and re-heated.

Serve with Pumpkin Spiced Whipped Cream

Ingredients:

1 cup of whipping cream
2 tsp of vanilla
1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice

Instructions:

Mix with your mixer until still peaks form; just like regular whipped cream. Serve this on your pancakes instead of syrup. Or if you want some syrup just do a teeny bit; like a capful. And use REAL maple syrup. No diet syrup. A bit of the real stuff is better for you. I served mine with the whipped cream and a very teeny drizzle of syrup. It was WAY YUMMY!

Enjoy!
Cheers,
Zola