I’m not sure why I have never made caramel apple pancakes before. It is absolutely delicious. It reminded me of eating a big caramel apple. Except in pancake form of course. Ever since I found caramel extract at the store, I have been using it all the time. It gives such an awesome caramel flavor, without any of the sugar or calories of caramel sauce.

The caramel flavor wasn’t just in the caramel apple topping. I used the caramel extract in the batter for the pancakes as well. The caramel apples were really easy to make. I just sauteed an apple in coconut oil. Then when it started to get soft, I added the sugar free maple syrup, cinnamon, and a little bit of caramel extract. Mix it around a let it cook a little bit. The syrup will turn into a caramel color and taste almost exactly like caramel. Yum!

I even decided to take the apple flavor a little farther by adding pieces of apple pie Krush protein bar on top. It was the first time I have ever had an apple flavored protein bar, and it surely did not disappoint. There were actually moist chunks of apple inside the bar. It seriously tasted like apple pie. One of my favorite parts about this bar is that it has 18 grams of fiber, 20 grams of protein and only 2 grams of sugar. You really can’t beat that.

I opted to use cinnamon bun protein powder in this recipe. There is just something about cinnamon and apples that just goes so well together that I couldn’t pass up. Vanilla protein would also work great. You can just add a little cinnamon if you are like me and really love cinnamon flavor.

The caramel apples are basically the same thing that I topped my apple pie french toast with a little while ago. I just added caramel extract this time. If I am going to have apples, there isn’t any other way that I would rather eat them.

[tasty-recipe id=”3234″]