One-Dish Oven-Baked Apple Crumble Pancake

When we were first married, I got up at 5:30 in the morning to get to work on time and was usually napping by 4 pm, while Carl rolled out of bed around 8:00 to head to classes at university, and then was busy till at least 11:00 at night, so we didn’t see a whole lot of each other.  Now that we have 4 kids, I sometimes regret the way we spent our first couple years of marriage, acting as if we’d have all the time in the world to sit on a patio sipping cocktails in the evening, going on spur-of-the-moment date nights, and really appreciating sleeping through the night.

Most of our quality time together at the time was late in the evening, and so we began a suuuuper healthy habit of evening eating, because food goes well with quality time at any time.  We’ve never really broken our evening eating habits, and one of the first things I remember deciding to make late in the evening is pancakes.

In those early years, I must admit to being barely able to boil water, and I made my pancakes too thick and didn’t cook them for long enough, resulting in epic failure pancakes, raw and cold in the middle and completely inedible (although, to his credit, Carl ate the better part of a couple pancakes before telling me).

After that, Carl became our official pancake maker, and it’s only in the last year or two that I’ve ventured back into the pancake fray.  I’m relieved to say my skills have come along, and I now make a mean pancake, whether regular ol’ basic pancakes or buttermilk, cinnamon bun, crepe, or apple cinnamon varieties. However, I’ve yet to purchase the giant griddle of my dreams, and I hate the fact that making pancakes takes so.flippin.long (pun intended) in a frying pan.  Also, when you’ve just had a 9-lb baby the old fashioned way, you aren’t about to stand by the stove and flip pancakes for any length of time, if you and your lady-parts know what I’m sayin’.

So with this one-dish pancake?  Sunday breakfast just got a lot easier.

I made this twice in a week, something that rarely happens – once exactly like this and once with berry syrup swirled on top in place of the apple topping, and it was a hit both times.  It’s really basically a thin coffee cake with way less sugar, just perfect for breakfast or brunch or breakfast for dinner.  Served with some fresh fruit and whipped cream, we loved this for dinner and it has since become a staple in my recipe rotation.  It’s full of flavour on its own, but icing sugar, whipped cream and/or syrup certainly don’t hurt matters :)

I don’t know how many to say this serves…it feeds our family of 2 adults and 3 kids for breakfast, but I could definitely see eating half of this myself if it was all I was eating for dinner, so you’ll have to report back and let me know how many this feeds in your house so I can update my recipe accordingly :) Either way, I think you’ll love this way-easier way to enjoy pancakes with your family!