Breakfast Fun: Spell Things With Your Pancakes

Tired of round pancakes? Maybe even the standard chubby pancake man is losing his charm. Mix things up with pancake letters instead, like reader Jackie who sent us these cute photos of her own breakfast alphabet project. Read on for her secret weapon for making alphanumeric breakfast food.

Jackie writes: I wanted to tell you about a fun food idea for kids. We like to spice up our mornings by spelling out words and the alphabet with pancake batter. We use a turkey baster to spell out the words on the griddle, but you can also use an empty ketchup or mustard bottle (if you have one sitting around). Our son just loves it!

Here's a link to her own post about the pancakes, with more photos:

• Y Is for Yum at Avocado & Papaya

(Image: Jackie via email)

Comments (7)

Yeah, that's adorable! I was thinking "squirty ketchup bottle" for the technique, but a turkey baster is pretty brilliant too.

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posted by eprewitt on June 23rd 2009 at 1:42pm
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I love my turkey baster, not because I cook turkeys so often, but because i use it for pancakes and squirting good globs of icing and whipped cream.

yum!

posted by kaitlin on June 23rd 2009 at 1:51pm
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I tried this with a turkey baster and it was a disaster (that's how my Dad does it, though) I think mine didn't work because I make whole wheat pancakes from scratch, which makes the batter much thicker. Dad's a Bisquick guy from way back.

After trial and error, two things really made this work...letting the batter rest for 5 minutes to let the baking powder activate (gets you much thicker pancakes, the ones in the picture are pretty thin) and use a pastry bag, which can accomodate any thickness of batter and gives you a lot more control. Oh, and I use a bag clip on the end of the bag between batches.

My kids think I am THE GREATEST when we do these!

posted by debtex on June 23rd 2009 at 3:07pm
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My mom used to do these, except after she'd make the letters, she'd pour a ladleful over them to make them full pancakes with the letters darker in the middle.

posted by meleyna on June 23rd 2009 at 4:49pm
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Also, if you want a round pancake to have a letter on it, pour the letter shape first, give it a second, and then pour out the round pancake background on top. Of course, you can make a lot of other interesting designs this way, too. Kinda fun to make spiraled pancakes by slowly pouring from the center out.

posted by Kakugori on June 23rd 2009 at 7:41pm
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Those are adorable! I'm definitely thinking that (and other fun shapes) for brunch sometime soon...

posted by rachellevi on June 24th 2009 at 7:52am
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I used to do this as a kid, although I tried to do it with a spoon so mine were less like letters and more like squiggles. Will be trying this again soon.

posted by bkk on June 27th 2009 at 4:29am
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