weekend/cinnamon roll pancakes

hey everyone!

we had such a great weekend and are still recovering from all of the excitement.

my best friend courtney and her husband harris (and their furbaby lucy) came to visit us for the weekend, and saturday we had our first baby shower! my wonderful friend kat hosted it at our house, and we invited all of our friends. it was the first baby shower for a lot of the guys there, which was fun to watch. we played games, ate a lot, and i had the best time opening ellie's gifts! we got some amazing things that were so fun to put away in the nursery. 

another big event happened this weekend-we discovered the goodness of cinnamon roll pancakes. i ate cinnamon rolls for breakfast pretty much every other day for much of my 2nd trimester, and i think i could still eat them daily if i let myself. i eventually realized the fat and sugar were not the greatest way to start my day, but i LOVE the taste of cinnamon rolls. i've always been a fan, but it's definitely intensified during pregnancy.

anyway, courtney is also pregnant (12 weeks-yay!), and has been a fan of sweet food so far, so i figured a sweet breakfast saturday morning would be a winner for both of us. i pinned a cinnamon roll pancakes recipe on pinterest awhile back and gave it a try.

y'all. it is ridiculously good.

you make a regular pancake batter, swirl in a cinnamon filling, and top it with a cream cheese glaze. the brown sugar in the filling gets all caramelized and crunchy when you cook it, and it is just to die for.

i obviously was not concerned with taking pictures during this process, so here's one from the original recipe source (life-in-the-lofthouse.com):

here's what you need:

• make it easy on yourself and use your favorite store-bought pancake mix. if you have to, or really prefer it, you can make them from scratch using whatever plain pancake recipe you can find. it really cut down on time to make these with my go-to krusteaz honey wheat mix!
• cinnamon filling:
• 1/2 cup butter, melted (treat yourself and use real butter....it's worth it)
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
• cream cheese glaze (aka heaven on earth):
• 4 tbsp butter
• 2 oz cream cheese
• 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

here's what you do:

1. prepare the cinnamon filling first. (generally i don't follow every recipe direction like this, but i'm glad i did in this case. the filling really does need time to "set"). mix butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon and scoop the filling into a small ziplock bag. set aside.

2. prepare pancake batter: if you're me, you add water and mix. if you want to be complicated, go right on ahead :)

3. prepare cream cheese glaze: heat butter and cream cheese in a microwave-safe bowl until melted. whisk together until smooth, then whisk in powdered sugar and vanilla. set aside.

4. heat griddle over medium heat and spray with non-stick cooking spray. scoop pancake batter onto griddle as usual. snip a small corner of your baggie full of cinnamon goodness, and swirl it over the top of the pancake. flip over when ready, and cook until done.

5. spoon warmed cream cheese glaze on top of each pancake when serving.

if you like sweet breakfasts at all, please make these. they won't disappoint! enjoy!