Make you banana pancakes, pretend like it’s the weekend now

Nothing says weekend like a plate of warm pancakes flipped by the special occasion cook in your house.

Our resident pancake maker has griddled all manner of cake including blueberry, applesauce, chocolate chip, banana, raspberry and every combination of the aforementioned. He flips pancakes in the shape of footballs, cartoon characters, names and, on one memorable occasion, he served a pancake in the shape of a pony-tailed girl kicking a soccer ball.

On long, lazy weekends our resident pancake maker enjoys nothing better than standing at the griddle flapping jacks for large groups of family and friends. In all ways the biggest group he’s served has been the entire Appleton North football team, including the coaching staff. The smallest in number to date has been, well, me.

In fact, Sunday morning I rose to cheerful sound of rattling bowls I sniffed my way to the kitchen.

“Pancakes?” I asked hopefully?

“I can’t find any pancake mix,” he said, an unprecedented situation.

I hustled over to my laptop, chatted for a bit with my friend Google and came up with a variation of the recipe below.

These pancakes turned out so delicious that I don’t think I’ll be buying mix anymore.

Pretend like it’s the weekend Pancakes

1 1/2 cup flour

3 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 1/4 cup milk

1 egg

3 tablespoons melted butter

Mix dry ingredients. Make a well in the center and add wet ingredients. Mix well.

Drop onto a well-greased hot griddle or frying pan. The pan is hot enough when a drop of water dances. When bubbles form in the batter and the edges appear to be cooked, flip the pancake. I never wait long enough for this step and end up flipping goo. The trick to a good pancake, much like to trick to a good weekend, is patience.

You can add fruit to the batter, but our pancake expert prefers to drop the berries into each pancake for equal distribution. Combinations we’ve enjoyed have included: raspberry chocolate chip, banana chocolate chip, banana raspberry chocolate chip, banana toffee chip, apple cinnamon chip, blueberry, etc.

I’m hungry.