Mickey Mouse Pancakes

When I was a kid, my mom cooked us delicious meals served on stainless steel plates. My sister and I would always joke about how this plating style resembled the way prisons or army barracks would serve food. It wasn't until later that I would realize the benefits of stainless steel as one of the most inert and safest materials used for food contact. Mommy really does know best. Later, when I first started working, I couldn't understand why wines needed to be decanted into a beautiful crystal vessel. In my younger days I quipped in front of everybody, "Why can't you just decant wine using a bucket or something?" To this the reply was, "Because it wouldn't be the most refined…" What a pretentious prick, I puffed.

I have never been the one to plate or make food look nice. To me, food that tastes good is good food. This mentality guided me very well through life until I started learning how to cook. I have begun to appreciate why we must pay attention to presentation.

Creating something beautiful demands that you pay more attention to your cooking. I certainly started to pay more attention when I know that I have to plate the food nicely. The final display forces you to improve, to strive for the perfect texture and perfect doneness. It makes you observe more carefully, knowing that food doesn't just have to taste good but, just as importantly, it must appeal to all the senses. I know this because whenever I serve up beautifully plated dishes or have gone out of my way to make something extra special, my guests seem to enjoy their food slower and linger longer around the dinner table.

So here I present to you what I had for brunch today. Pancakes carefully molded into a Mickey Mouse shape served with bacon, maple syrup and orange juice. The pancake recipe is also one of my favorites. It produces the fluffiest lightest pancake. Try it. I am confident that your family will love it.

Pancake recipe

Dry Ingredients:
2 cups all purpose flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
1/3 tablespoon salt (table salt is ok but I prefer sea salt)
1 tablespoon sugar

Wet ingredients:
2 eggs, separate into whites and yolks
2 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoon melted butter

Directions
1) Whisk egg whites with buttermilk in a bowl.
2) In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks with the melted butter until the mixture is pale yellow.
3) Combine the buttermilk mixture with the egg yolk mixture in a large mixing bowl and whisk together until combined. It is ok to leave the lumps in, you do not need to remove all the lumps!
4) Place Mickey pancake mould on a preheated non-stick pan. You can use a little cooking spray to grease the first pancake, but usually cooking pancakes don’t require grease or you’ll end up with oily and soggy pancakes.
5) Using a small teaspoon, drop 3 teaspoons of batter into the center of the mould and quickly spread from the center outwards.
6) Cook for 2 mins or until the bottom has set, then flip the pancake. Cook again for 1 min and release from mould.

Makes 12 Mickey Mouse Pancakes.

Sources:
Mickey Mouse Pancake Mould is no longer available on the Disney online store but it is available here:
http://www.treasurekingdom.com/DT/008DLHMMm.html

More specialty baking items also available on:

http://www.biodiversityherbs.com

Have a great week ahead!

-Julie