Designer pancakes!

Recently, we discovered what I call "designer pancakes". The kids can have personalized pancakes that are SO simple to make. The kids love coming up with designs and the possibilities are only limited by your creativity.

First, you'll need a griddle. Despite the precious cupboard space these things take up, I've decided that it is a necessity to have an electric griddle for making pancakes, grilled cheese, frying eggs, or anything that would take FOREVER to cook one at a time in a skillet. I previously used a one burner cast iron griddle because of my disgust of teflon. Since then I've found Wolfgang Puck's awesome griddle. You can store it on it's side (I store it with my cookie sheets), and it's coating is made of something harder than teflon since the instructions actually say you can use metal cooking utensils on it (although I still don't).

Second, you need a plastic squeeze bottle like in the picture below. I cut off the tip to have a bigger hole, but you wouldn't need to. You can find one of these at Walmart for about a buck. I use them for LOTS of things (homemade salad dressings, honey, maple syrup, oil for greasing pans, vinegar to add to my salad with the oil, pancake batter...). I recently found a heavier duty set at Sam's Club. I was thrilled. Really, it doesn't take that much to make me happy...

And third, you need pancake batter. You could use the "just add water" stuff, but making pancakes from scratch is pretty simple. We've even drawn out the ingredients on a recipe card so that my non-reading five-year-old can mix up a batch in the morning. Here's the basic recipe that I follow (halving or doubling as needed) that can easily be made into gluten and/or dairy-free if needed:

2 cups flour (whole wheat, white, gluten free mix, or whatever you have)

2 T. sugar or sucanat (unrefined cane sugar that looks somewhat like dirt, but tastes... YUM)

2 T. baking powder

1 t. salt

1-2 t. cinnamon

Mix dry ingredients, then add:

2 c. milk (whole, almond, rice, or whatever)

2 eggs

2 T. olive oil

Whisk together. It will thicken as it stands. If you want it thinner, add more milk. Thicker, add a little more flour. We use this basic recipe and mix it up by adding chocolate chips, mashed banana, blueberries... you can add a bit of nutmeg, ginger and cloves for a spice pancake. We've even had grated carrots, mashed sweet potato, and finely grated zucchini. For designer pancakes, you'll want to use the basic recipe...

As you're making the pancake batter, you can start heating your griddle to about 300 degrees. Use some of the batter to fill your squeeze bottle. Once your griddle is fully heated, grease your griddle if needed and then use your squeeze bottle to draw a design. Use your imagination, but remember, if you make letters, numbers or names, you need to draw them backward so they will be the right way when you flip the pancake over. Let your design cook for a minute or two and then move to the next step.

Once you've cooked your design a bit, pour a ladle full of the bowl of pancake batter right over your design, making sure to cover it completely. Keep cooking until bubbles start to form and you can turn it over without making a mess. You don't want to cook it too long because you want contrast between the design and the surrounding pancake.

After flipping, you can now see what you drew, and you will continue cooking for another minute or so until the pancake is cooked through.

Serve it up with some butter and real maple syrup and you'll have one smiling face! (or in this case, TWO of them :)