My family loves to sleep in and then have pancakes for brunch on the weekend. Yum ! But who wants to stand around flippin’ flapjacks while everyone else curls up on the couch with coffee?  Not me! Once again Mother Necessity bears an invention – an easy version of the oven pancake. Mix everything in one large measuring cup, pour it into a pan and cook it all in the oven -no kiddin’, no flippin’!

No Flip Flap Jack

4 T butter               1 1/2 C Water

2 C fruit*                2 Eggs

4 T sugar*              2 C Pancake mix

Spices*

Preheat oven to 425°F

To save washing up, measure water into a large measuring cup, add eggs and stir with a fork to break up the eggs. Add pancake mix and stir until moistened.

Melt butter over medium heat in an extra large (10 inch or more) OVEN PROOF skillet.  Add fruit, sugar, spices. Cook until sugar is melted and mixture just bubbles, then swirl up the sides a bit. Pour batter gently over butter mixture.

Bake in the oven for 15 minutes.  Sip coffee. Peruse newest patterns. Reduce the heat to 375°F and bake for 10 minutes more.  Go work a few rows.  DING!

Be careful taking that pan out of the oven. I always slip a glove potholder right over the pan handle to avoid anyone grabbing it by accident.

I have never had any luck slipping it out onto a platter and serving all fancy-like. Not because it’s hard to do – the pancake just disappears when I turn my back to grab the platter.  Cut into wedges and serve with or without your usual pancake toppings.

*Fruit/sugar/spice combos taste tested at my house:

Bananas Foster: bananas/brown sugar/nutmeg/dash of rum flavoring

AppleJacks: apples/brown sugar or white sugar/apple pie spice

Blueberry Muffin: blueberries/white sugar/dash of vanilla   For this combo, melt the butter/sugar/vanilla, pour on the batter then add the blueberries over the top. They are so delicate that they turn to mush otherwise.

Nutty Chocolate Chip: (chocolate is a fruit on the weekend, right?) Chocolate Chips/chopped pecans or walnuts   Melt the butter (no extra sugar needed), add nuts, pour on the batter, and then sprinkle with chocolate chips. Probably not 2 cups of chocolate chips- but I won’t tell.

October means lots of apples, but it also means lots of knitting. Who has time for baking?  You do with this recipe!

You’ll need only 2 dishes (and one of them is the pie pan) if you mix everything in a giant measuring cup.  I use my microwave to melt the butter in a glass measuring cup – just be sure to let it cool before adding the egg or you get scrambled egg (ask me how I know…)  Mix all the other ingredients right in the measuring cup, then pour.  The batter forms the crust as it bakes so  I suppose this isn’t really a pie, other than it is pie-shaped, but it works for me.

I like to play with spices so mine will have nutmeg and cloves added to the standard cinnamon-sugar.  I rarely have walnuts in the house, so they hardly ever make it into the mix. No one has ever missed them.

No cleanup other than putting the measuring cup in the dishwasher and the apple peels in the compost bin!

Easy Apple Pie

• 4-6 Apples*
• 1 T Sugar
• 1 t ground cinnamon**
• 1 1/2 sticks butter
• 1 C flour
• 1 C sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• 1/2 C chopped walnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350° F.

Peel, core and slice apples about 1/4 inch thick into an ungreased pie pan until full.  Mix the 1T sugar with the 1 t cinnamon (add more or less of any of the other spices listed to taste) and toss with the apple slices.

In a large measuring cup, melt the butter.   Add the egg and lightly beat with 1 C sugar and vanilla.  Add the flour, stir to combine.  Mix in the walnuts and feel free to add spices here instead or in addition! Pour this mixture over the apple slices.

Bake at 350° for 45 minutes until golden.

Cool until you can’t stand it anymore then eat it up YUMMM!

* I like Fuji, Granny Smith. The quantity depends on how big your apples are and how full you like your pie-pan. I like to have mine heaped up in the center.

**Also try fresh ground nutmeg, allspice, ground cloves, ginger, apple pie spice