Jungle pancakes

As if elaborate birthday cake wasn’t enough, I got sucked in by the photos of shaped pancakes in the William and Sonoma catalog. Anyone who knows me would never guess that I’d invest $30 in pancake preparation tools. But someone gave us a gift certificate as a housewarming present, I have fond memories of my uncle making us shaped pancakes as kids (though he managed without any special tools), and I figured the early I buy the molds, the more years of use we can get out of them.

The catalog showed elves and reindeer and I was initially going to buy those. But they cost $1 more than the jungle animals. Since River loves jungle animals, that was an easy choice.

The next morning I made Trader Joe’s pumpkin pancake mix in the shape of tigers, elephants, and monkeys. River seemed content (though I must admit, he’d be perfectly content just to have pumpkin pancakes). The animals were recognizable, though as clear as I’d hoped. And it wasn’t quite as easy as it looked. Next time I’ll try the recipe that came on the package. Now that I’ve spent $30 on pancake equipment, I may as well practice and get used to it.