Easy Apple Cinnamon Breakfast Cake

Laying in bed this morning, trying to wake up pre-coffee, I began to mentally walk through my pantry contents to figure out what to serve for breakfast. My girls are like their mama and LOVE carbs for breakfast. I had cereal with milk almost EVERYDAY of my childhood. And I like cereal, but I cannot hack it every day. And we had cereal yesterday.

A few months ago I found this recipe for "pancake squares"  done in a 9 x 13 baking dish. The major benefit is that I'm not standing in the kitchen flipping pancakes while everyone else devours them. Plus, while the pancakes are in the oven doing their thing, I can focus on making my much loved coffee and reading a story to my kiddos! The square pancakes are made from scratch, and I figured if homemade from scratch pancakes can be baked up in the oven, why not boxed pancake mix? 

So this recipe is the tasty results of my laziness combined with my daily desire for something different. Pancakes baked up in the oven are a little more cake like and less pancake like. I took advantage of that texture and baked it up in an 8 x 8 pan instead of a 9 x 13. You could easily double the recipe, and it might be fun to try different fruit and spices. All 3 of my little girls seemed to really like this light, not too sweet breakfast cake.

Apple Cinnamon Breakfast Cake

INGREDIENTS:

1 apple

1 1/2 cups pancake mix

1 cup milk

1 egg

1 T. oil 

1 t. vanilla extract

2 t. cinnamon

Non-stick cooking spray

DIRECTIONS:

1) Preheat oven to 350*. Spay sides & bottom of an 8 x 8 inch baking pan.

2) Peal and core the apple. Slice it into 8 wedges. Then cut each wedge into thin bite size slices. It is important to keep these thin so that the apples cook all the way and are nice & soft. 

3) Toss the apples with 1 t. of cinnamon in a bowl until all the apes are coated with some cinnamon. Spread the apples out on the bottom the prepared baking dish.

4) In a mixing bowl, combine the pancake mix, milk, egg, oil, vanilla & remaining cinnamon to form a smooth batter. 

5) Pour the batter gently over the apples, and bake for 20 minutes. Slice into squares and serve with butter & syrup.