Carrot Pancakes with Cream Cheese Icing

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A few years back when I was running the kitchen of a small brunch restaurant my sister sent me a recipe for carrot pancakes. Basically you add grated carrots, cinnamon and walnuts to your basic buttermilk pancake recipe and dollop cream cheese icing on top. I am a big fan of nearly anything with cream cheese icing on top, and I am wild about most things that teeter the line between dessert and breakfast. But the restaurant had 6 burners and a flat-top griddle that could barely support making french toast, much less adding pancakes to the mix, so I put the idea into the massive index of things I plan on making one day but mostly I forgot about it.

But this weekend I made a carrot cake and much to much cream cheese icing. I did however, have plans for a girlfriend to come by for brunch, and carrots in hand we made carrot cake pancakes.

Now I feel the need to explain this to you; it isn’t actually just fried carrot cake. I promise. It walks the line sure, but with 2 tablespoons of added sugar and spelt flour it’s hardly worse than the average pancake. It has 3/4 pound of carrots in it! And yes, the icing might not be the best but it’s no worse than maple syrup. Honest.

So without further ado, here are carrot pancakes, I reccomend eating them often.

Carrot Cake Pancakes

(Adapted from Joy the Baker)

1 cup AP Flour or Spelt Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/2 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 tsp Ginger

1/2 tsp Nutmeg

1 Egg

2 tbsp Brown Sugar

1 Cup Buttermilk

2 cups finely grated Carrots

Canola oil for frying.

Icing

1/2 cup Cream Cheese, room temperature

3 tbsp Soft butter

1/4 cup Icing Sugar

1-3 tbsp Milk

Mix together the cream cheese and the butter, add in the icing sugar and stir to combine. Add the milk to thin it out.

Pancakes

Put the oven on the lowest temperature it goes on.

Mix together the dry ingredients in a medium sized bowl and make a well in the center.

Stir the egg into the buttermilk and pour into the dry ingredients. Mix a couple of times and than add in the carrots- Stir just until combined.

In a large pan over medium-low heat warm a tablespoon of oil. Pour 1/4 of the batter and cook until bubbles appear all over the top of the pancake. Flip and cook until it’s firm to the touch. Keep warm in an oven.

Put on a plate and eat lots!