Homemade pumpkin pancakes are spiced with cinnamon and loaded with chocolate chips. You’ll love starting fall mornings with a happy stack of these thick, moist, and flavorful pumpkin pancakes.
Pancakes, buttermilk waffles, whole wheat waffles, or French toast are a weekend tradition. In the fall, soak into this pumpkin French toast casserole or try today’s pumpkin pancakes instead. Who said pumpkin only belongs in at the dessert table in pumpkin pie? 🙂
Overview: How to Make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes
I always appreciate how quickly these pumpkin pancakes come together. You’ll have a satisfying breakfast on the table in no time.
- Mix the dry ingredients together.
- Use a blender to mix all wet ingredients together (see more below). This recipe uses 1 and 1/4 cups (285g) of pumpkin puree and if you have more to use up, here are recipes to make with leftover pumpkin puree.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix until *just* combined. The batter is very thick.
- Heat a skillet and generously coat with butter. Once it’s very hot, drop about 1/4 cup of batter onto the griddle. Cook on both sides until cooked through, then repeat this process for remaining batter.
- Keep pancakes warm in a preheated 200°F (93°C) oven until all pancakes are cooked. Serve with your favorite pancake toppings like maple syrup, salted caramel, or whipped cream.
Looking for a pumpkin waffles recipe? Use this pumpkin pancake batter for your waffle maker! Follow steps 4 and 5 in my recipe for buttermilk waffles.
Use a Blender for Smooth Pancake Batter
My trick for perfect pancakes? Mix the wet ingredients in a blender. A blender guarantees an incredibly smooth batter and also breaks down the pumpkin in the process. This is especially necessary if you are using fresh pumpkin puree. Add the pumpkin, brown sugar, egg, oil, and whole milk to a blender and blend on high for 45 seconds until combined. I have used and love all of these blenders—you can’t go wrong! I recommend a blender when making homemade crepes, too.
No blender? No problem. Whisk by hand or use a hand mixer.
Ingredients in Pumpkin Pancakes
Made with fall pantry staples, these pumpkin pancakes come together easily.
- Flour: Use all-purpose flour for the base of these pancakes.
- Baking Powder + Baking Soda: Yes, we use both, just like we do in whole wheat pancakes. These leaveners are what make your pancakes tall and fluffy.
- Cinnamon + Pumpkin Pie Spice: Pumpkin’s favorite spices. Using a combination of these two adds mega fall flavor. Go ahead and whip up a batch of this homemade pumpkin pie spice because you’ll want to use it again for other favorites like pumpkin snickerdoodles & pumpkin muffins.
- Chocolate Chips: I used semi-sweet in this recipe, but mini, dark chocolate, white chocolate, or cinnamon chips would also be delicious! If you don’t like chocolate chips in your pancakes, feel free to leave them out—they’ll still be delicious.
- Pumpkin: Measure your pumpkin carefully. In my recipe testing, I found that 1 cup of pumpkin wasn’t enough, while 1 and 1/2 cups was way too much. You need a precise 1 and 1/4 cups.
- Brown Sugar: The slight molasses flavor from brown sugar pairs well with pumpkin.
- Egg: Binds everything together.
- Oil: Adds moisture.
- Whole Milk: Whole milk is key to rich and tender pancakes. I do not recommend using soy, almond, rice, coconut, skim, 1%, or 2% milk. The best substitute would be buttermilk.
Pumpkin Pancakes Success Tips
It’s easy to make fluffy pancakes using a box of pancake mix, but nothing compares to homemade. When I began testing pumpkin pancake recipes, I had a long streak of reject batches comparable to hockey pucks. They were dense and flavorless. Why? Because pumpkin is a funny little ingredient. It changes the moisture, tenderness, and texture of anything it touches.
Here are my tips to making perfect pumpkin pancakes:
- Pumpkin pancakes are very temperamental and even the slightest change in ingredients could spell disaster. Make the recipe as written first, then tweak as you see fit if necessary.
- Measure the pumpkin carefully! Use exactly 1 and 1/4 cups in this recipe.
- Use a blender to combine the wet ingredients.
- Whisk batter until *just* combined, no more. A few lumps is OK.
- Make sure your griddle is very hot before adding the pancake batter.
Follow these tips for moist, fluffy, and flavorful pancakes!
More Pumpkin Breakfast Recipes
- Pumpkin Bread & Pumpkin Coffee Crumb Cake
- Mini Pumpkin Muffins
- Pumpkin Crumb Cake Muffins
- Homemade Pumpkin Coffee Creamer
- Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 12 pancakes
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes are the epitome of a cozy fall breakfast! Moist and fluffy, they’re wonderful with a pat of butter and a cascade of maple syrup. Make sure you read my notes in the post before beginning.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spoon & leveled)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 heaping teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*
- 1 cup (180g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 1 and 1/4 cups (285g) pumpkin puree (canned or fresh)
- 1/3 cup (67g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 3 Tablespoons (45ml) canola or vegetable oil
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) whole milk*
Instructions
- In a large bowl, preferably with a pour spout, toss the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and chocolate chips together until combined. Set aside.
- I like to mix the wet ingredients in a blender (I love the one that is linked!). This guarantees a smoother batter and breaks down the pumpkin. This is especially necessary if you are using fresh pumpkin puree. Add the pumpkin, brown sugar, egg, oil, and whole milk to a blender and blend on high for 45 seconds until combined. Alternatively, you may whisk by hand or use a hand mixer.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk gently to combine. Make sure there are no patches of dry flour at the bottom of the bowl. The batter is very thick and a few lumps are fine.
- Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat. Coat generously with butter or nonstick cooking spray. Once it’s hot, drop/pour a heaping 1/4 cup of batter on the griddle. Cook until the edges look set and you notice holes in the pancake’s surface around the border, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook the other side until cooked through, about 1–2 more minutes. Coat griddle/skillet with butter or nonstick spray again, if needed, for each batch of pancakes.
- Keep pancakes warm in a preheated 200°F (93°C) oven until all pancakes are cooked. Serve pancakes immediately with toppings of choice.
- Cover and store leftover pancakes in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: Pancakes freeze well up to 3 months. Reheat frozen pancakes in the microwave. Or you can reheat frozen pancakes in a 350°F (177°C) oven. Place pancakes on a lined baking sheet and cover with aluminum foil. Bake for 6–8 minutes or until defrosted and warm.
- Can I make the batter the night before? No, I don’t recommend it. Baking powder is activated once wet. You can, however, mix the dry ingredients and wet ingredients together and keep them separate and covered in the refrigerator until the morning.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Mixing Bowls | Blender | Whisk | Electric Griddle, Griddle Pan, or Shallow Skillet/Pan
- Pumpkin Pie Spice: You can find pumpkin pie spice in the baking aisle of most grocery stores or make your own homemade pumpkin pie spice. If you don’t have either and want to use individual spices, use 1/4 teaspoon each: ground ginger, ground nutmeg, ground cloves, and ground allspice. This is in addition to the 2 teaspoons of cinnamon—you will still add that.
- Milk: Whole milk is key for the richest tasting pancakes.
Keywords: pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes
Can I replace the oil with butter for more flavour? Or does the butter get overwhelmed (like other spice recipes). Thank for all that you do!
Melted butter would be just fine instead!
I use this batter in the waffle maker. I love making waffles because I can do things while they cook for 2 minutes each (busy mom here). Also, the leftovers freeze well and I don’t have to buy freezer waffles for the kids anymore. The boxed items at the store often have seed oils and additives that our family try to avoid as well so homemade is best! Often times this is the first site I go to when I want to bake something. You had me hooked after the blueberry scone recipe. Thanks Sally, I love all your recipes!
★★★★★
The whole family loves these
★★★★★
Do you think this would work with butternut squash puree instead of pumpkin? Our garden this year was overly generous on the BNS and I am looking for new ways to incorporate it without causing a family mutiny 🙂
Hi Rachel, we haven’t tried that, but let us know how they turn out if you do! Here are all of our other recipes that we have using butternut squash.