A Mother's Day Pancake Bar!

I actually spent a lot of time trying to decide what to treat my mother to for this Mother's Day, I thought that I'd pretty much done it all... french-toast, breakfast stratas, crepes, omelets, eggs Florentine, potato latkes, finger sandwiches. But then in discussing it with my younger sister, she mentioned that I never really made the traditional pancake breakfast. She's a genius!! So, with my menu pretty much figured out all I had to do wat figure out how I wanted to prepare my pancakes... and I thought what better way than to create the customize-your-own PANCAKE BAR!!

What You Need:
- Pancake Recipe (see below)
- "Mix-in" ingredients
- Topping ingredients
- Super sweet sauces to cover all of the above :P

The "Mix-Ins" included: crushed pecans, chocolate chips, blueberries, butterscotch chips, toffee bits, cookie crumbs and flaked coconut.

The topping choices included: fresh strawberries, apple cinnamon compote, pineapple chunks, bananas and freshly made whipped cream.

I had a lot of sauces available to choose from... I made a strawberry compote, a chocolate fudge sauce, the classic maple syrup and some caramel sauce.

Super-easy Pancake Recipe
Yields 8 large pancakes

Ingredients
- 2 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp + 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 egg
- 1 3/4 cup buttermilk (or 1 3/4 cup milk + 1 1/2 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar)
- 3 tbsp shortening, melted

Method:
1. Combine the flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in a large bowl.
2. Mix together the buttermilk, eggs and melted sugar.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry, stirring until just moistened.
4. Let the mixture rest in the fridge for at least 5 minutes (this allows for the baking powder to react and produce nice bubbles, which create the fluffiness)
5. Heat a frying pan or griddle on medium heat. Grease the pan with margarine or butter, using a 1/4 cup sized ladle, spoon the batter onto the pan.
6. Scatter the "mix-in" (1/4 cup mix-in per 1/4 cup pancake batter) ingredients on top of the pancake batter, continue frying the pancake until he bottom is nicely golden. Flip the pancake and cook the other side.
7. Once the pancake is cooked, plate and serve with toppings and sauce!

Here's the batter in the pan with some mix-ins on top... mmmm blueberries, coconut flakes and crushed pecans.

Flipping the pancake over, the blueberries are still kind of visible!

So, the way I set up the bar was that I provided each family member with 2 small dishes (labeled with their names) that were approximately 1/4 cup. I let them know that each cup would be for one pancake, and that they could mix and match whatever "mix-ins" they wanted into one pancake. After selecting their "mix-ins", all they had to do was hand me their dish and I would make them their personalized pancakes right on the spot. With the frying pans already heated and ready to go, each pancake only took about 3 minutes.

Here's my mom's lovely looking pancake. It looks so delicate and elegant, just like my mom :P

This is my pancake, a bit of a mess... all hodge-podge with whipped cream, fudge, caramel and fruits on the side... hehehe, strange looking yet super tasty.

These pancakes were amazing, they were very fluffy... even more so than the ones made using a pre-mix. I don't think I'll ever use that pre-mix stuff again; besides, making pancakes from scratch isn't that difficult. The pancake bar was a success, my sisters really enjoyed it and my mom was excited that she didn't have to cook (or clean)... all-in-all it was a fantastic mother's day breakfast!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM!! WE LOVE YOU LOTS ~_~