Sour Cream Pancakes With Cardamom Apples

Published Oct. 9, 2024

Sour Cream Pancakes With Cardamom Apples
Rachel Vanni for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Spencer Richards.
Total Time
45 minutes
Prep Time
15 minutes
Cook Time
30 minutes
Rating
5(460)
Comments
Read comments

Sweetened and sauced by buttery, sautéed cardamom apples and a two-ingredient maple-sour cream blend, these pancakes are a delicious way to ring in autumn. The pancakes are even special on their own, moist and light thanks to the addition of sour cream. Mixing the flour and the sour cream together before gently folding in the eggs makes for a fluffier pancake. The floral sweetness of the caramelized cardamom apples is a perfect contrast to the tang of the maple sour cream. This recipe can be easily doubled to feed a crowd or scaled down to feed just two.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings (12 pancakes)

    For the Pancakes

    • 1cup/128 grams all-purpose flour
    • teaspoons baking powder
    • 1teaspoon baking soda
    • ½teaspoon fine sea salt
    • 2cups/454 grams sour cream
    • 4large eggs
    • ½teaspoon vanilla extract
    • 2tablespoons salted butter

    For the Caramelized Apples

    • 6tablespoons salted butter
    • ¼cup/50 grams brown sugar
    • 2pounds Gala (or other) apples, peeled, cored and sliced ¼-inch thick (3 to 4 medium apples)
    • 1teaspoon ground cardamom

    For the Maple Sour Cream

    • 4tablespoons sour cream
    • 1tablespoon maple syrup
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (4 servings)

787 calories; 53 grams fat; 29 grams saturated fat; 2 grams trans fat; 14 grams monounsaturated fat; 3 grams polyunsaturated fat; 69 grams carbohydrates; 5 grams dietary fiber; 36 grams sugars; 13 grams protein; 969 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and sea salt. Next, mix in the sour cream. In a medium bowl, whisk together the eggs and vanilla. Gently fold the eggs into the flour and sour cream mixture just until fully incorporated. Set the pancake batter aside.

  2. Step 2

    Prepare the apples: In a large skillet over medium-high heat, melt 4 tablespoons of butter. Add the brown sugar and stir until dissolved. Next, mix in your apples and cardamom and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, 15 to 25 minutes, depending on how crisp-tender you’d like them to be. When the apples are soft, take the skillet off the heat and stir in the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter.

  3. Step 3

    While the apples cook, make your pancakes: In a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter. When the butter has melted, cook your pancakes, adding a scant ½ cup pancake batter for each (you should be able to fit 3 pancakes at a time in a large skillet). Let the batter cook, unbothered, until the bottom is crisp and brown, and bubbles appear, about 2 minutes. Flip the pancakes and cook until browned underneath, about 1 minute. Repeat with the rest of the batter, melting additional butter in the pan as needed.

  4. Step 4

    In a small bowl, mix together sour cream and maple syrup. When the other two dishes finish cooking, plate the pancakes and top with a generous helping of caramelized cardamom apples and a spoonful of maple sour cream.

Ratings

5 out of 5
460 user ratings
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Comments

These are terrific! I used yogurt instead of sour cream in the pancakes, and kept the sour cream for the topping. The pancakes have a crepe-like flair and the cardamom in the apples make these truly stellar.

I don’t love sweet breakfasts. My husband doesn’t eat eggs. Morning meals at home aren’t easy. We chose this recipe to help reduce our supply of apples after an overly-enthusiastic morning of apple picking. I’m glad we did. The apples are the star of the dish and aren’t overly sweet (I halved the recipe and used two medium sized apples, one Evercrisp and a Pink Lady). The sour cream made the pancakes light and fluffy. I expect we’ll be eating a lot of these in the future.

This recipe is almost identical to a family favorite my mom made. I loved it growing up, and so did my own kids when I made it. We called it “cottage cheese pancakes,” and we used 1 c cottage cheese and 1 c sour cream instead of 2 c sour cream. (Also no vanilla extract or apple topping- just a TBSP of sugar and then sprinkled with a little powdered sugar before serving). And now my kids are grown and making “cottage cheese pancakes” of their own, except they’ve tweaked it to sub Greek yogurt for the 1c sour cream, for a delicious and healthy high-protein breakfast!

Pancakes with fruit is generally a very bad idea; even waffles, which are better, don't fully work. This is a good example of that for me. The fruit and its juices mask the whole trouble one goes through to make pancakes and to get their texture right. No go.

I really liked this recipe since I had extra sour cream on hand. I also used cinnamon instead of cardamom for the apples, diced them. And I added some lemon juice to the batter the 2nd time I made them.

I doubled the recipe, and used 0% greek yogurt. No need for sour cream. Just a little butter in the pan. Delicious and not too eggy even with extra-large eggs. I don’t like cardamom so used a tiny amount of it along with cinnamon in the apples. I didn’t bother with the maple cream. In the end it took too much time to prepare, with all the components. However I will make these high-protein pancakes again and serve just with maple syrup.

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