We spent Memorial Day weekend in Connecticut at my in-laws’ house. Dave’s brother and his wife were visiting from New Zealand, and Dave’s sister and her husband came from Boston with their two little boys. We barbecued, ate good food, and hung out. In addition, Dave’s sister’s youngest was baptized and we all went on a tour of The Glass House.
Our elder nephew, Andrew, who is also our godson, loves animals (especially dinosaurs) so I brought along some of the newest additions to my ever-expanding cookie cutter collection.
I found these at the Field Museum on a recent trip to Chicago
With some help from Andrew, I baked up some dinosaurs. We ate them after the baptism.
Monday morning, I took the opportunity to try out another recent purchase: my Williams-Sonoma jungle animal pancake molds.
I was worried that the pancakes weren’t going to come out as pictured, but was pleasantly surprised. To make the cakes, you place the molds on a non-stick surface (I had two going at once: a pan and a hot plate) and fill with batter.
When the cakes are ready to be flipped, remove the molds, and flip. Voila.
Filling the molds can be tough if you like thick pancake batter; I had to thin mine a bit so it would spread faster. Even so, I had to carefully spoon batter into the various parts of the mold which resulted in some lines forming on the face of the cakes (as you can see above). Removing the molds also requires a little finesse (I enlisted the help of a rubber spatula), but if you’ve waited long enough and the edges of the cakes have set, it’s pretty simple. This lion was my best cake of the morning:
It's not perfect, but pancakes shouldn't have to be
After I made pancakes for all eight of my hungry customers, I settled down and enjoyed an elephant and monkey of my own.
