Barbie Doll Pancakes

Last night I was thinking about how much kids like things like the "silly" and the "offbeat" and was remembering how my daughter used to love her "Barbie Doll" pancakes.

Barbie Doll pancakes came to be when I was making pancakes one morning and my daughter was standing on a stool at a safe distance, watching.

I poured the batter for one of the pancakes and as I finished, a small amount dripped away from the normal sized pancake, forming it's own tiny pancake. My daughter saw that and being that she liked all things tiny, she said "I want that one, I want that tiny pancake."

Sensing something big, I made lots more tiny pancakes, all about the size of a penny, and made the comment that they were about the size that a Barbie Doll would eat, and so Barbie Doll pancakes were born. From then on when I made pancakes, my daughter had to have her tiny, Barbie Doll pancakes even though everyone else had the normal sized pancakes.

It takes so little to do something just a bit offbeat and out of the ordinary and yet it can make all the difference to a child and make all the difference in whether they will be encouraged to eat their meal!

Below is my regular standby pancake recipe. Sometimes I change it up a bit by adding fruit or vanilla or mashed sweet potatoes etc. *note when I add sweet potatoes I double the baking powder and throw in an extra egg.

Light Buttermilk Pancakes

1 cup flour

1Tbs sugar

1 ½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

½ tsp soda

1 cup buttermilk

1 egg, beaten

Combine dry ingredients. Combine the remaining ingredients and add to dry mixture. Stir just until moistened. Batter will be lumpy. Bake on hot griddle that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Use more cooking spray as needed. Cook one side until pancake starts to bubble then flip once to cook other side.

* buttermilk substitute - 1 Tbs vinegar and fill remaining one cup measure with milk to replace buttermilk.

*I keep pancakes in one of my glass pie plates in oven set on low to keep them warm. I just stack them up in the pie plate as I cook them.