Cinnamon Roll Pancakes with Cream Cheese Frozen Yogurt or Red Hot Glaze

This year on Christmas we fed the kids ice cream and cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

On Christmas morning my husband often enjoyed cinnamon rolls growing up. For our Christmas morning, and Valentine's day for that matter, we try for a fun breakfast. Dutch babies, eggnog french toast, red velvet pancakes. This year we created something fun - cinnamon roll pancakes. To top it off, I made a cream cheese studded frozen yogurt. No worse for you than the typical syrup topping and my kids loved having "ice cream" for breakfast.



Fast forward a few months. Valentine's day is coming up, and I decided to revamp the recipe. This time, topping it with a red hot glaze. The pancakes are yeast raised, so they taste like sweet buns, but they are soft and gooey - and a lot less work than cinnamon rolls. I find they work well gluten free.

Now this is where your judgment as to come in. Different flours absorb fluid at different rates. And you want your batter to be different consistency depending on how you cook them. On Christmas I made a thicker batter to make circle pancakes without a mold. On Valentines day, I used a heart mold (cookie cutter), to make shaped pancakes with a thinner batter. The thinner batter produced a wonderfully moist pancake, and would work well in a waffle maker as well. But it is a bit trickier to work with. To make a thicker batter, just add more rice flour to thicken up the batter.

Cinnamon Roll Pancake Batter

• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 3/4 cup gluten free oat flour
• 3/4 cup potato starch
• 1/4 cup sweet rice flour
• 1/4 cup brown rice flour (plus more as needed)
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt (or 1/2 t table salt)
• 1 t baking powder
• 2 t cinnammon
• 1 t vanilla
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten

1. Mix together flours, salt, cinnamon and baking powder. Set aside.
2. Dissolve yeast and sugar in milk and buttermilk. 
3. Mix eggs, butter and milk mixture with flour mixture.
4. Chill in refrigerator OVERNIGHT.

Sugar cinnamon syrup

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 TB cinnamon
• 3 T butter, cut into cubes

1. Mix sugar with 1/4 cup water in a large sauce pan. 
2. Heat over medium, stir until dissolved and then don't stir. 
3. Allow to boil for 2 minutes then reduce heat and stir in butter until melted. Keep over low heat while you make the pancakes.

 To assemble pancakes

1. Heat a nonstick skillet over medium low heat. Using a well greased pancake mold, pour in the batter, so it is about 1/4 inch thick. 
2. When the top is almost set, drizzle on cinnamon butter syrup. Remove mold and flip pancake. 
3. Cook until browned on the bottom. 
4. Top with glaze or frozen yogurt
5. Serve immediately. 

Cream cheese frozen yogurt

• 4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
  
• 1/2 cup sugar (or to taste)
• 1 t vanilla extract
  
• 2 cups plain yogurt

1. Beat cream cheese until light, then add sugar and beat until fluffy,
2. Add 1/4 cup of yogurt and vanilla and beat until well incorporated.
3. Fold in remaining yogurt and cool for 4 hours or overnight. 
4. Freeze in ice cream machine. 

Red Hot glaze

• 1 cup red hots
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2-6 T milk (or buttermilk)

1. Place red hots in food processor and pulse until they are well ground. 
2. Add in powdered sugar and pulse until combined.
3. Remove to small mixing bowl. 
4. Add in milk 1 TB at a time, until it is the desired consistency. Remember it will thin when placed on the hot pancakes.