Buttermilk cinnamon pancakes with maple vanilla apples

My family are pancake lovers, and we have no qualms about sharing our love for pancakes with everyone who comes to eat with us.

As we have eaten pancakes for as long as I can remember, the only tricky thing is finding ways to spice them up so that we will never get bored of eating them (I always ordered the Alice in Wonderland from the Pancake Parlour for around 16 years before I tried something else, so I guess it would take a lot for me to get bored of pancakes).

As you know I loved the chai buttermilk pancakes I made a while ago, but I felt like something fruity and less spicy, so I played Dr Frankenstein and merged this recipe with this recipe and ended up with the pancake hybrid you see before you. I wasn't even going to post this as it was a last minute idea, but after everyone starting cooing over them I took a quick snap of my plate.

Buttermilk cinnamon pancakes with maple vanilla apples

2 eggs
2 cups flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled (omitted, didn't need it)
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

for the apples:
2 granny smith apples sliced
2tbs butter
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup maple syrup
1tsp vanilla seed paste

Whisk together buttermilk, butter, eggs and vanilla until combined. Mix together all the dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk until combine. Set aside and let it rest for 5-10mins.

For apples, melt butter in a non-stick pan, add sliced apples and cook 3mins per side. Add cinnamon, vanilla paste and maple syrup and simmer for 5mins. Remove apples and reserve syrup.

Heat a nonstick pan and melt a little butter. Add 1/4cup amounts of pancake mixture, place 1 apple slice in the centre of the pancakes. Cook 1-2mins per side until the pancake is bubbling and then flip and cook for a further 1-2mins. Serve pancakes with leftover maple apples, the apple syrup from the pan and a dollop of cream.

ease: 5/5.
prep time: 20mins.
cooking time: 16mins to make around 12 pancakes.
total: 36mins.

taste: 5/5. Everyone really loved these, my brother even ate them without the extra apples, syrup and cream and still loved them. The apples really are the star of this dish along with the syrup.

would I make it again: Yes.