When we lived in Berkeley, La Note restaurant was one of my favorite brunch spots. There are a million amazing restaurants in Berkeley, but the lines outside of this place on the weekends is well-deserved. It’s small, cozy, and the (mostly) rustic French food is pretty perfect.

When I found this recipe for La Note’s gingerbread pancakes, I decided to bring a little Berkeley back into our kitchen. I made these for breakfast on Christmas morning with toasted pecans and sauteed apples, and we froze the leftovers and had more for breakfast on New Year’s day.

These pancakes and moist and cakey and perfectly spicy. I think they’d also be wonderful with blueberry syrup and hazlenuts, for a little Oregonian flavor.

The recipe for La Note’s Gingerbread pancakes is on epicurious, but I made some changes. I substituted my homemade vanilla bean apple butter for much of the butter in the recipe, and used half white whole wheat flower and half all purpose to get a little whole grain action in there. They remained incredible, so feel free to try them that way if you like pancakes that aren’t quite so unhealthy.