How to Make Pawpaw Pancakes
Last year we used our pawpaw harvest to make Pawpaw Bread and Pawpaw Muffins. This year, we’re making pawpaw pancakes!
We wanted to do something new. and we’ve been experimenting with pancakes of all kinds, including those containing breakfast cereals. The tangy tropical taste of pawpaws made a great addition to the lineup!
The first step was foraging.
Where to Find Pawpaws
Pawpaws are indigenous fruits here in Virginia. They have thick, green skin like mangoes and they blotch like bananas as they ripen. When the flesh is ripe, it’s incredibly sweet and tastes like a tropical custard.
While pawpaws grow in most of the eastern United States, they are not ripe very long. We have had very good luck finding ripe pawpaws in mid to late September. (Our region of Virginia is growing zone 7a.) The edges of streams and rivers are excellent spots to hunt as pawpaws seem to like the water and need a good bit of sun. Most of the public parks in our area actually have pawpaws when they are in season. You may have passed them before and not even noticed!
I’ve foraged enough to know when pawpaws are in season because I can smell them! If you’re new to it, you may find them hard to pinpoint. An easy way to find them is to look for fruit on the ground!
Most of the trees are small and thin, which makes shaking and bending them preferable to climbing them when you spot a ripe bunch.
You can also occasionally find pawpaws at farmers markets, but since they are only ripe for a day or two, they aren’t commonly farmed. You’ll want to use only the ripest fruits for the pawpaw pancakes or you’ll need to combine them with other fruits to sweeten the batter.
Pawpaw Pancakes
Yield: 8 pancakes
Ingredients
- 1 cups pawpaw flesh, mashed, with seeds removed
- 1 cup milk
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tablespoons butter, melted
Directions
- Sift flour and baking powder into a large bowl. Whisk in milk, butter, vanilla, and egg and stir until smooth.
- Fold in fruit and stir until well combined. If batter is too thick, add a splash of milk. If it is too runny, add a tablespoon of flour.
- Heat a medium non-stick pan over medium-low heat. Spoon the batter into the pan, around 1/4 cup per pancake.
- Cook until bubbles appear on the surface of the center, around 3 minutes. Turn and cook until cooked through, about another 3 minutes.
Pawpaw Pancake Tips
These are delicious topped with powdered sugar or other fruits.
If your pawpaws are underripe, you can cook the flesh on the stovetop with a splash of water and a sprinkle of sugar to ready them for use.
If you don’t have enough pawpaws or want to experiment, try mixing pawpaws with pineapple, banana, or strawberries for an intriguing mix of complementary flavors.
Enjoy!
4 Comments
Ellen Hoitsma
Missing the milk In ingredients list. One cup, maybe
Holly
Thanks, Ellen!
Madeline
Nice use of pawpaw pulp for a person who must cut down on sugar. I agree that they should be served with other fruits. I made a batch this morning from pawpaws from our own tree (last year’s pulp in the freezer in Maryland). These pancakes are nice to freeze for use on another morning. Thanks for the recipe!
Holly
Your own tree? I’m so jealous!