Cinnamon Roll Pancakes

I read quite a few blogs.  Most of them I read because the blogger has ideas similar to mine.  Occasionally I get sucked into reading the blog rolls of the blogs I follow.  Then, three hours later, I emerge with a few recipes that I want to try "sometime."  Well, life gets in the way, and I forget about them for a period of time. 

Then, one Saturday afternoon I am wracking my brain to come up with another breakfast idea that's not the same 'ole, same 'ole and out pops cinnamon roll pancakes.  I know I'm not clever enough to come up with this all by myself, and a quick search confirms that I had read about them on a blog, Recipe Girl to be exact.  Her recipe for Cinnamon Roll Pancakes included a cream cheese glaze that probably made them more of a dessert than breakfast and yummy as they looked, I wanted something that I could kind of pretend was healthy.  Realistically, I know these aren't the epitome of health, but on a scale of 0 to 10 with 10 being the healthiest, I would rate these a 5 (whole grain and glaze free being the main selling points).

I used my regular pancake recipe and used a larger scoop (1/4 cup I believe).  For the cinnamon roll filling, I used 1/3 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon cinnamon.  I melted the butter in a bowl and stirred the sugar and cinnamon in.  Then I dumped the filling into a sandwich-sized ziploc bag and snipped the corner with scissors turning my ziploc into a mini piping bag (hindsight says I should've taken a picture of this). 

After pouring the pancake batter on the griddle, I used the piping bag to make swirls on the batter.  Well, that's what I was tring to do!  When the bubbles on the pancake began to pop, I flipped the pancakes.  I let them cook on the second side a bit longer than I normally would on regular pancakes.  It seemed to give the cinnamon-sugar time to caramelize a bit and they had just a tiny crunch when you bit into them.  Sheer bliss I'm telling you,  so yummy! 

I made a double batch of pancake batter and a single batch of the filling, so I ended up with 16 cinnamon roll pancakes and 10 regular pancakes.  I only had 5 kids eating breakfast this morning, so I had quite a few leftovers, despite everyone having 2 (a limit I imposed, otherwise those kids would've eaten them all!).  I laid them on a cookie sheet to flash freeze.  As soon as I have a chance to reheat and eat them, I'll update as to how well they stand up to freezing.  I'm hoping it will be a success so I can have a quick sweet fix occasionally while the kids are napping in the afternoon! :)