Pancake Breakfast for Dinner

Today is National Pancake Day (2/28/12)... Some of you may have gone to IHOP to indulge in their free pancake give away, but I wanted to make some special pancakes for Marley.

I usually just grab a box of the pre-made mix from the store... if you want quick, you can totally dress up these mixes. 

But it being National Pancake Day and all, I wanted to try out a homemade pancake mix. I found many mixes online, the one I used tonight was from allrecipes.com and I just added vanilla extract to the recipe.)

Recipe continued after the jump...



Homemade Pancakes 
(Makes about 8 pancakes.)

Ingredients: 1&1/2 cup all-purpose flour; 3.5 tsp baking powder; 1 tsp salt; 1 TB sugar; 1&1/4 cup milk; 1 large egg; 3 TB butter(melted); 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.

Step 1. Mix dry ingredients: in a large bowl sift the flour, and add baking powder, salt, and sugar.
Step 2. Mix wet ingredients: in a separate bowl whisk together milk, egg, melted butter, and vanilla extract.
Step 3. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and slowly pour in wet ingredients. Mix until smooth.
Step 4. Heat a lightly oiled pan over med-low heat(heavy pans like cast iron are great for pancakes). 
Step 5. Once your pan is hot, pour 1/4 cup of pancake batter for each pancake. Heat about 2-3 minutes each side. Hint: once the batter starts to show bubbles, it's time to flip. Brown on both sides.


Dress up your pancakes. 
I reserved about a 1/2 cup of pancake batter in a small bowl and added 2 drops of red food coloring, to make pink pancakes for Marley. I read online that you can use a turkey baster to draw shapes out of the batter in your pan. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a big FAIL. The batter was too thick. I was not able to easily suck up and squeeze out the batter... I ended up just drawing a heart shape onto the pan with a spoon instead.


Or add fruit! Pour a 1/4 cup of batter in the pan for each pancake. (Do not crowd your pan, it's best to make them in batches.) Then add your fruit... I like blueberry and banana so I made some of both. Drop in your fruit, and then when the batter begins to bubble, flip and cook the other side. Continue until you've used all your batter.


Tip: You can make large batches of pancakes, and then put them in a zip lock and store them in the freezer. Then you can just pull out pancakes and re-heat in the microwave later for a quick and easy breakfast.

Oven-baked bacon!! 

Cooking your bacon in the oven instead of frying in a skillet has many benefits:
A. It's easier, and you can't beat easy. 
B. You can make the whole pack of bacon at once. 
C. You can cook the bacon without having to think too much about it, and focus on your other dishes. 
D. Use a broil pan, and the grease will drain off while it cooks. So... here's how it's done.

Step 1. Preheat oven to 350°. (Tip: start your bacon before your pancakes.)
Step 2. On a broil pan, line up all your bacon strips.
Step 3. Bake in the oven for about 30 mins.
Step 4. If you like, crispier bacon, then flip and place under a low temp broiler for about 5-10 mins.
Step 5. Remove from pan, and drain on paper towels.

Thank you National Pancake Day for giving Marley an excuse to eat breakfast for dinner. She loved her pink heart pancakes and said "Mommy these are the best pancakes ever!"