With all these painting orders and planning for the arrival of my little Miss Flora Nightingale in the next few weeks, I CANNOT BELIEVE that I forgot that today is PANCAKE TUESDAY. Oh yes it is, and noooo I did not make that up! This isn’t even a silly invented holiday- In fact it’s Shrove Tuesday, and I just dug this little nugget of info off of Wikipedia so you can learn something new today!

“Pancakes are associated with the day preceding Lent because they were a way to use up rich foods such as eggs, milk, and sugar, before the fasting season of the 40 days of Lent. The liturgical fasting emphasized eating plainer food and refraining from food that would give pleasure: In many cultures, this means no meat, dairy, or eggs.”

Wow. My mind is so bursting with knowledge and my stomach is ready to be bursting with pancakes, so lets get started. And I’ll make these dairy-free in honor of Lent. Just kidding, it’s in honor of me or anyone who can’t digest bovine juice.

Now, feast your eyes on this stack of pancakes (you’ll need to if you want to get the term ‘bovine juice’ out of your mind!)

These are no ordinary pancakes! In fact, I think pancakes are boring and I don’t really chose to eat them. I was spoiled as a kiddo- my mom would usually make us muffins, french toast or pancakes for breakfast, even on school days, and for some reason I’ve just never been a breakfast fan. Oh man I need to tame the A.D.D. in this post- I am in such a rush for you all to see it that I will probably not even edit this. So, pardon the spelling mistakes etc.

Okay one distraction- I got the BEST blog comment ever! It went like this:

“Although I really like this publish, I believe there was an punctuational error near towards the end of your third paragraph.”

I am SO tempted to respond with his grammar errors! But, I wont. I am aware of my lack of English skills, and until I’m getting paid an insane amount of money to write, I just can’t bring myself to do anything but craft, cook, ramble and show off! That being said, feel free to correct my mistakes- I don’t want to look like an idiot!

BACK TO THE PANCAKES (hopefully we will stay on this topic!!!)

The thing that makes these pancakes extra special is the cinnamon swirlyness.

OH MY GOSH my 1 year old just got into his poopy diaper. So much for not being distracted and posting this recipe ASAP! You probably don’t want to hear about poop while reading this delicious tutorial- but oh well, it is the story of my life. All  I have to say is that 1 year old poop-messes are SO much better than 7 year old autistic poop messes.

Speaking of autism, check out the sweet fundraiser that my sons AMAZING school organized to raise money for autism services!!! It is a great auction, with lots of awesome handmade things to be won! I’ve even got a couple of items up there- so check it out HERE! 

I can’t believe that I just went from pancakes, to poop, to an autism fundraiser. This, my friends is the story of my life, all between stirring pasta sauce and gluing buttons onto a very special painting. I love it, and I hope it at least entertains you a bit 😉

I got the recipe for this cinnamon mixture from this sweet blog. She made some pretty spectacular cinnamon roll pancakes and has a great recipe for cream cheese icing to put on top- but we are doing something a little bit different here.

For the cinnamon swirlyness, I mixed up:

1/2 Cup vegan margarine, just melted (which is dairy free- but you can use butter if you can handle milk products)

1/2 Cup packed brown sugar

1 Tablespoon of cinnamon

Then I stuck it all in a baggy, tied it off and cut a small bit of the tip off:

And I took a cruddy picture, and didn’t even photoshop the marinara off of my stovetop because I am in such a rush to get these pancakes in your belly STAT!

I stick this baggy of goodness in the fridge for around 5 minutes to harden up a bit while I am making my pancake batter.

Now, the batter you chose to use doesn’t really matter! Heck- you could even use a mix! Really- the added swirl and icing will make these awesome no matter what you do! My personal fave pancake recipe comes from America’s Test Kitchen, and you can check that out here. 

To make them dairy-free I just sub almond or coconut milk for the cows milk, and I use my handy vegan margarine in place of butter.

Next, I use my 1/3 cup measuring cup to plop some batter on my griddle like so:

…and once you can see some little bubbles popping through the top of your pancakes, you are ready to swirrrrrl! Your first few might be ugly. Give those to the kids and make them feel special for getting the first ones.

Create a pretty swirl like this, making sure to keep the cinnamon mixture away from the edge of the pancake to avoid a mess (although these will still be delicious tasting no matter how sloppy you make them!)

Flip them as carefully as you can, and let them do their cooky thang for a few minutes, or until they are cooked through.

What a gorgeous stack of pancakes! Shrove would be proud! Haha.

CROSS SECTION:

Drool. Though it needs some icing for sure, and I have to say that my mom used to work at a cinnamon bun store, and I have natural skills for this kind of thing, so here is my favorite cinnamon roll icing recipe:

(And another cruddy photo!)

Cinnamon Roll Icing

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons of icing sugar

2 tablespoons of melted butter (I used vegan margarine to keep it dairy-free)

1 tablespoon of milk (I use almond or coconut milk)

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

a pinch of salt

Mix until it aint lumpy and spoon over warm pancakes (or double the recipe and use it for normal cinnamon buns!)

OH GOLLY GOSH ISN’T THAT PERFECTION?!?!?!?!!

Just let it melt for a second:

Oh baby. Yes.

Well, I am shutting off my mind and ending here so I can quickly share this with the deserving world!

Happy Pancake-Shroving and Fat Cell-Loathing

Hehehehe.

~Dot