Healthy, single-serving pancakes that taste like apple pie. The batter’s oil-free, and there’s a vegan option.

Do you know what tomorrow is?

Mardi Gras?

Yes. But there’s something else. Something special.

Mardi Gras is special! A giant parade with rainbows is pretty darn special.

True, but there’s another celebration on Tuesday.

The day after Presidents’ Day?

Ugh, this is going nowhere.

Tomorrow is… PANCAKE DAY… aka Shrove Tuesday.

Pancake Day and Mardi Gras share the same history. The day before Ash Wednesday (the beginning of Lent) was historically a day for feasting and eating all sorts of delicious foods, including pancakes. As I understand it, pancakes were a convenient way to use eggs, milk and sugar (which were banned during Lent).

While – generally speaking – people aren’t as strict about Lent anymore, eating pancakes on Shrove Tuesday is still popular in many countries.

So we’ve skipped the fasting and kept the pancakes. That’s what I call progress.

If you’re anything like me, you sometimes go through food ‘phases’ where you’re craving a particularly food 24/7. About a month ago I had a serious week-long pancake craving (more severe than usual). During that week I made many, many single-serving pancake recipes which I’ve been slowly posting on this blog.

As I love apples so much, I made this recipe several times: once with a real egg and once with a flax ‘egg’. There was also an eggless gluten-free version, but I still need to work on that one. Really, the less said about that failure, the better.

While the flax egg works, I won’t lie to you: the real egg makes better pancakes. In this recipe, at least.

So you know, I’ve included pictures of both the real egg and flax egg pancakes in this post.

Real egg pancakes: Spotty background

Flax egg pancakes: Plain blue-green background

Not surprisingly, the eggless gluten-free disasters weren’t photographed. Oh deary me. *Shakes head*

The topping on both pancake stacks is really easy to make. All you need to do is finely chop a small amount of apple (~1/6 apple). Then sauté it in a greased skillet over medium-low heat. Add a little maple syrup, and about 2 minutes later you’ve got a pancake topping.

Since those Black Forest Pancakes for One, I’ve become a little obsessed with pancake toppings.

However, never be afraid to add more maple syrup 😉

One more thing: Happy Presidents’ Day!

This recipe has basically nothing to do with Presidents’ Day. But apple pie can be used to celebrate anything, right?



