Birthday Stack & 3D Pancakes

By Danielle, on February 19th, 2011

I asked my son what he would like for his special birthday breakfast; he hit me with, “pancakes.”

Really? I consider it an everyday kind of breakfast and I was really thinking he’d pull out the fresh polish sausage and all of the extras kind of breakfast that I would have to shop for. His birthday was on a school day so I really wanted to make sure his day was starting off super special.

After much unsuccessful persuasion, I concede to the pancake breakfast but had to figure out a way to make it memorable.

How could I make pancakes more fun than we already have? Cute shapes - been there, done that.

So I prepared the batter and put it into a squeezable bottle, like so many do, and began to freely create – letters. I squeezed the batter on a hot griddle creating each letter individually. Quickly flipping each one before they burned. I made letters spelling each of my children’s names. Cute but not yet what I was going for and definitely not filling.

Resorting back to small round pancakes is what I did – then stacked them SKY HIGH! They held up for the first ¾ of the tower but I quickly found a skewer to stick through the center to secure and made a cute topper for the Birthday Stack! I couldn’t end it there – I needed more for impact!

I took the letters H and B and tooth picked them to the front of the stack for Happy Birthday. Experimenting more, I made a large swirl of batter on the griddle, carefully flipping it when it was time. To my surprise, the swirl stayed together and completed the top of the stack – mission accomplished – he was in awe!

Use whatever you have available to embellish. M&M’s, strawberries, blueberries, or chocolate chips stuck in between layers. Mini pancake swirls are also fun to tooth pick around the stack. We shared the bottom few pancakes for breakfast and enjoyed leftovers the next morning!

Since babies cannot have pancakes, due to the egg content, until 1 year of age (or 2 yrs according to some pediatricians) this is a perfect 1st birthday breakfast…or 2nd birthday breakfast!

3D was also on my mind because there was much talk about the 3D DSI that is coming out (not happening). So I created 3D pancakes for fun. Using a squeeze bottle, I outlined a flower and then filled it in with batter so the outline is visible. Then I used one of the letters, initial of a first name perhaps, and layered it flat on top (flat 3D?). But better yet, with the aid of a toothpick, I propped up the letter for the 3D effect!

SO FUN!

What do you think? Do you have any creative pancake creations to share? I’d love to hear your ideas.