When I was a kid, my dad would get up early and make a hot breakfast for us every day. I didn’t realize how lucky I was until I talked to a friend at school who said her mom just had a variety of cereal to choose from each morning. Here’s the thing though, I rarely ate it. It was always delicious but I’ve never been much of an early morning breakfast person. I just didn’t wake up hungry; I needed to be up for a couple of hours before I was ready to eat. Now that I’m a mom myself, I have an extra appreciation for Dad’s cooking. He could whip up biscuits and sausage gravy, scrambled eggs, pancakes… all the traditional breakfast items. He also taught me that pancakes freeze really well. He would make a huge batch all at once and freeze half of them for us to eat later on. I still do this every time I make pancakes. I love being able to heat up homemade pancakes from the freezer whenever I’m craving breakfast or just don’t have the energy to cook.
Let me start by saying there is a special place in my culinary heart for pancake mixes – “just add water”. However, there are days when I have run out of pancake mix and don’t want to run to the store for that one single item. The beauty of homemade pancakes is that you probably already have all of the ingredients in your kitchen. We only need the basics here and you can still end up with super fluffy pancakes. On an extra special day such as a birthday or your kid aced a test or maybe your spouse got a promotion, take things up a notch and add sprinkles. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, sprinkles bring joy! And yes, in my house, sprinkles are just as much a pantry staple as flour or sugar. You never know when you’ll want to spark a little extra joy so just keep those rainbow sprinkles stocked at all times!
Tips:
- Definitely melt the butter before you start mixing any ingredients. This will allow it to cool before you add the eggs so that you don’t end up with a scrambled egg batter.
- Keep the heat on medium to medium low. I know it is tempting to crank it up to get things cooking faster but you’ll just end up with pancakes that are burnt on the outside and raw on the inside.
CELEBRATION PANCAKES
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 Tablespoons sugar
- 4 Tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 2 cups milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1/4 cup rainbow jimmies/sprinkles
- Optional toppings: butter, maple syrup, whipped cream, more sprinkles
Instructions
- Heat a lightly oiled griddle over medium heat.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar. Stir in the melted butter, milk and vanilla. Stir in the egg and then the sprinkles.
- Scoop about a ¼ cup of batter onto the heated griddle. Depending on the size of your griddle, you can make more than one pancake at a time. Cook until batter starts to bubble on top and bottom is golden brown. Flip and continue cooking until the second side is also golden brown (about 1 minute). Remove from griddle and continue this process until all batter is used.