Apple Pancake Bowls

 

Baking for breakfast, yes, it’s definitely a thing, as we’re quite aware.

Now, see, I am not and have never been a morning person, much to the frustration and chagrin of pretty much every morning person I know.  Or, everyone. 

I just can’t.  I have tried.  I’ve had very early morning jobs.  Early classes.  Nothing can or ever will break me of my night-owl-ish-ness.   Shrug, what can I say?  I didn’t ask to be a night owl, I merely am.

I absolutely love screamingly bright, super glorious sunshiny days, can’t get enough, but sunrises and up and at ‘ems and early bird gets the worm business, neh.  Give me the peacefulness and silence and dark of night please. 

So, ya know, as much as I love me some baking, popping up at the crack of dawn rip roarin’ to conjure up a breakfast baked good feast to start the day out strong just ain’t ever gonna happen.  Ever.  I’m not a coffee drinker either so yeah, mornings, nmm mm, bzzzz, you’re out.  

I am a fan of prep-it-the-night-before French toast casseroles.  Yes, that is no problem.  Pop it in the oven the next day while Mike (Mike is our resident Master Breakfast Maker, I am Waffle Batter Assistant) is assembling all the other aspects?  That I can do. 

Speaking of bread casseroles, feel free to use one of my bread recipes for such an occasion, say, if you can’t get to a second loaf in time.  In fact, using the second loaf from the Basic Bread recipe, my mom did as much, using it successfully for the Chocolate Bread Pudding. 

Oh, right!  Yes!  She baked bread for the very first time in her life!  I’m so proud!

Look how perfect it turned out! For a first time ever! Right?!

As I was saying, though.  Not a morning person.  Sorry not sorry. 

This here recipe, these Apple Pancake Bowls from Carlsbad Cravings, are an easy morning baking compromise.  They are speedy and ragingly delicious all with minimal effort (read:  still come out fantastically even when groggy with pillow imprints on your face). 

And bonus, you can prep two thirds of the recipe, actually the entire recipe, the night before so in the morning you can zip zip, have an incredibly tasty, stepped up breakfast in about a half hour!

Right?!?!

Honestly, I personally would wait to make the batter the day-of but prepping the apples and the oat crumble topping ahead is a time-saving boon.  

Sooooo easy, and oh my gosh, as I said, sooooo delicious.

Ok, saute up the apples first in a skillet, tossing in the cinnamon, brown sugar, and butter.  Let that go until everything is nicely sticky and the apples have softened.  Now, you can set this aside if you’re going day-of or pop everything in the fridge overnight.

Chop the apples any way you prefer; I find thin slices work well, thinner than depicted here. And there’s the oat crumble topping ready to be mixed.

Next up, make the oat crumble topping.  Just toss everything in a bowl, yep, all in, then smush the butter into the ingredients much like you would if you’re making biscuits.  And again, either set this aside or pop into the fridge overnight.

The pancakes are just as simple.  Dump everything sans the melted butter into a large bowl or a blender or a food processor, zip it around with a whisk or the machinery until everything is smoothly blended.

Absolutely this can be whipped up by hand instead of in a processor.*  Done it many a time. Guess I was extra groggy here.

Add the melted butter, zip zip, you’re done!

A couple more zips needed and as you can see this is sans melted butter but it looks exactly the same with the butter in it.

Split the batter between the twelve wells of a muffin pan that you greased up well…

I always fill each well up a bit then go back to even them up with remaining batter.

I have that spiffy USA muffin pan* and things rarely stick but for added security, I did do mine up with a little butter and dusted with flour.  You could try paper muffin cups* but I don’t think they’re going to work well in this situation so I would not recommend that.  I would recommend baking spray with flour* here.

Ok!  Filled and ready to bake!

Mmmk, now just bake the little buggers for about twenty minutes or so.

If you chilled your apples overnight, take them out of the fridge and give them a slight reheat, enough, at minimum, to take the chill off.

When the pancakes are ready, they’ll be ginormously, alien-ly huge and puffy and slightly golden around the edges.  Take the pan out of the oven, let those suckers deflate a little, and in the meantime, move a rack to the second from top spot and flip on the broiler.

Holy puff!  Haha!

Top the pancakes with the apples then top everything with the crumble.  Uh yeah, it’s gonna get super messy here.

Trust me, stay groggy here and you won’t care about the mess that’s about to happen.

Then just broil up the tops until everything is snap crackly browned, moving the pan around so things brown evenly (aka not burn and set off the fire alarm way too early in the day), then serve!

Keep a very close eye on these, they can burn quick under the broiler.

These are so good.  I kinda want one right now, mid-afternoon.  Who am I kidding, these would be awesome for breakfast-for-dinner or topped with ice cream for dessert!  Yes!

So I made this batch:

Me:  (scooping the lil’ beauties out to serve) man, I sure hope these are as good as they were the last time….

Mike:  (glance of mild panic)

We sit down to eat.

Mike:  do you like them?  (Weird, usually it’s me asking.  Must be morning.)

Me:  yeah, wow, they’re really really good.  Better than I remember.  You?

Mike:  (looks me square in the eye)  Yeah. (pause pause) Yeah.  They’re really good.  (high five’s me)

Cleaning up he continues (huh, whaat?!), “thanks babe, those were really delicious.”  Awww.  He’s so sweet. 

Note, there are very, very few breakfast things Mike will reheat leftovers of but this is one of them.  Mike endorsed!

What a way to start the day.  Oh!  Heavenly.

Happy morning (or late morning) to you!

Note:  This content originally appeared on Flaky Bakers.

*The food processors, USA muffin pan, paper muffin cups, and baking spray with flour are Amazon affiliate links.  Happy baking, thanks!  Please see the "info" tab for more, well, info.