Jim's Pancakes

Summer’s hottest fashion – Pancake Sunglasses

by admin on 18. Jul, 2010 in Articles, Pancake Photos

I’m back! Sorry for the hiatus, we’ve been camping on the weekends lately so I haven’t had a lot of time to do Saturday pancakes in the kitchen. Anyway, we decided to make some awesome pancake glasses this morning, breakfast is always more fun when you can wear it. Note: add butter and syrup AFTER wearing the glasses otherwise you have to do bathtime twice. Next time we’ll add some sparkles for the full Elton John effect.

PS- Allie, I’m really sorry if anyone digs up this picture and makes fun of you in 15 years. I meant well.

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Summertime is here!

by admin on 08. Jul, 2010 in Articles, Pancake Photos

Summer is officially here…I know because anything over 70 degrees and I start to panic. To “celebrate” the summer season, I decided to make a watermelon pancake! Note: using real watermelon in pancake batter does NOT color it. It only makes a huge mess and wastes otherwise good pancake batter For this one I used some strawberry jam for coloring, it gave it a nice flavor and color. The seeds are colored with cocoa powder.

Enjoy!

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Who lives on a griddle under the sea? Spongebob Pancake!

by Jim on 26. Jun, 2010 in Articles, Pancake Photos

Allie doesn’t know who Spongebob is, this came through as a request from a reader on facebook. She’ll probably love the show in a few years, but for now we’re sticking to Nick Jr. and PBS. Anyway, he wasn’t too hard to make even though I managed to overcook his teeth and make him look like he drinks way too much coffee.

The brown color is cocoa, the red is colored with strawberry jelly and the yellow is a tiny amount of stale turmeric. Don’t use fresh turmeric because you can taste it. If it’s older it loses its flavor but maintains the coloring potential. A reader suggested it to me as an alternative to regular food dye if you are concerned about food coloring.

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Hello Pancake!

by Jim on 25. Jun, 2010 in Articles, Pancake Photos

Hello Kitty purse, Hello Kitty stuffed animal, Hello Kitty pencils, Hello Kitty clothes…now Allie can have Hello Kitty pancakes too!

This was really easy to do, it would be a great first-time pancake to try for your kids. Just draw the bow first, add an outline, eyes nose and whiskers and let it cook for a couple minutes. Fill it all in with a bunch of batter and you’re done- easy!

Maybe they’ll start selling these at the Hello Kitty store, they seem to have everything else in there

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A Cherry on a Spoon for Minneapolis!

by Jim on 23. Jun, 2010 in Articles, Pancake Photos

Cherry on a spoon pancake art

Just finished up an interview on KARE11 in Minneapolis…they really love pancakes in Minneapolis! I’ve never been there before, so I asked the producer for some suggestions for something to make that would represent their city. Apparently they have this giant sculpture of a cherry on a spoon in one of their parks, so I went for it.

Cherry on a spoon

In the side-by-side comparison, my pancake version looks a little sad, but it’s pretty hard to make a pancake spoon–as I found out. I had to cook just a little, then I heated up a ceramic bowl on the griddle. I let it cook the rest of the way on the ceramic bowl (the bowl was upside down) to hold the shape.

Either way, it was tasty. For the red color of the cherry I used some strawberry preserves (the kind without chunks of fruit) and it was delicious. I think I’m going to try apricot preserves for yellow coloring next time.

Thanks again to everyone at KARE11 for having me on, it was fun! I’ll post a link to the video as soon as I get it. — UPDATE— and here it is: Video Interview – KARE11

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Father’s Day Pancakes!

by Jim on 19. Jun, 2010 in Articles, Pancake Photos

Here’s a few ideas for making dad some special father’s day pancakes. First up, we have the golf pancakes. The trick to this one is to cook the golf club until it gets crispy on the outside, so that it can stand up.

Next, you want to create the putting green. Use a lot of batter so that the pancake is thick enough for you to insert the golf club into while it’s still on the griddle. This pancake is a no-flip pancake, so you should cook it on low heat for a long time to make sure it’s cooked all the way through. You could also finish it in the oven at 275 degrees for a few minutes.

Add a little syrup and you’re all set!

Next up – what father’s day wouldn’t be complete without an ugly tie?

These are pretty easy, you can make a bunch of them with left over colored batter. The more colors you use, the uglier they get

Finally, we have one of the best dad’s ever: Homer Simpson. You just have to make sure to drool a little and say “mmmmmmmm….pancakes…..” in a Homer voice as you eat it.

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When your dad is better at making pancakes than making campfires

by admin on 12. Jun, 2010 in Articles, Pancake Photos

We’re camping this weekend (as you can tell from the vintage upholstery in our 1977 motorhome) so of course we still made pancakes! I didn’t feel like making a full campfire first thing in the morning, so campfire pancakes are the next best thing. Allie thought it was pretty cool, she tried warming her hands over the fire for a bit too.

The “logs” are made using a lot of cocoa powder for coloring. They tasted pretty good too, although next time I’ll use chocolate syrup in the batter. The flames use beet juice for red (you can’t really taste it) and the yellow is supposed to be “all natural” from the restaurant store.

You know what else you need with a campfire? S’mores! These were super easy to make using some of the left over yellow batter for the graham cracker, non-colored batter for the marshmallow and chocolate batter for the chocolate.

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Just got an iPhone 4g- it’s delicious!

by admin on 10. Jun, 2010 in Articles, Pancake Photos

Why wait for the iPhone 4g to come out when you can make one that is just as good out of pancakes?

I attempted to use blueberry juice and cocoa powder to make black, but it didn’t go too well. It’s not the most appetizing-looking thing in the world, but it tasted good. I tried to get Allie to hold it up to her ear so that I could take a picture, but she told me that “it’s not nice to play with your food”. Wasn’t really sure how to argue that one.

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I’m not even good at Tetris pancakes!

by admin on 06. Jun, 2010 in Articles, Pancake Photos

This is a pretty accurate depiction of how I play Tetris on my computer too. I’m usually okay until about level 3, then my brain starts to overheat. Luckily when you make tetris pancakes, if you get frustrated you can just eat up the block and make new ones

Allie like the colors, but was less than impressed with the overall theme. I need to get her a gameboy or something so that she can appreciate this.

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A Salute to our Vets on Memorial Day – American Flag Pancakes!

by Jim on 31. May, 2010 in Pancake Photos

Happy Memorial day everyone! Here’s a patriotic pancake for ya. I really tried to get all 50 stars in there, but pancake batter is a bit unforgiving when you’re trying to do detail work.