Let’s talk Pancakes

Growing up, I have fond memories of Dad D’s breakfasts. There were Egg McDad’s, Scrapple, and of course only the highest quality pancakes.

I’ve played around with my dad’s pancake recipe whipping the egg-whites for fluffier varieties, adding chocolate chips, blueberries, or bananas – but again and again I find myself back at Dad D’s original recipe appreciating its simplicity.

This weekend was the first time I’ve modified the method successfully. Interestingly, it wasn’t a recipe change but an artistic one.

Some Kung Fu friends were hosting a big brunch in honor of the newest adopted addition to their family. Lucy’s 10 months old and, given the dedication of her parents, will someday be an insanely talented martial artist.

My contribution to this party? Flying sidekick pancakes.

I’ve linked to JimsPancakes in the past, but this weekend I used his empty ketchup bottle application method for the first time with huge success. I purchased some food coloring and got to work.

The trickiest part of this endeavor was keeping a clean steady flow of pancake batter coming out of the ketchup bottle. Sometimes little undissolved baking powder clumps would clog the nozzle and result in one huge left hand. Not a big deal as long as you’re willing to eat your mistakes.

I wanted to have as many of the kung fu belt colors as possible, but was disappointed to find a weak color dye selection at stop and shop. Just Yellow (yellow is useless for pancakes), Red, Blue, and Green. Most notably missing was a black. So for the dark belts I mixed chocolate syrup with the pancake batter.

If you try this at home, please note that the layer that touches the griddle first should be the finished side of your pancake. So reverse your design for the best finish. If you’re using multiple colors, you may notice that the boundary grain between your colors acts as a failure point for your design. To prevent this, put your colors down first and then overlap your plain pancake batter over your colored pancake batter. This will seal the pancake and make it more structurally sound.

Happy Pancaking!