Pancake Sunday 7.17

Cake Batter Pancakes

with 

Sprinkle Glaze

I found a delicious looking recipe for pancakes using cake mix on a website called Pinterest, are you addicted to Pinterest yet? If not, leave me your email and I'll send you an invite so you can be addicted too. So anyway, the recipe for cake batter pancakes was on an awesome blog called How Sweet It Is, which I am now following (and you should too) because all of her recipes look super delish and the pictures of her food are amazing! Practice definitely makes perfect because if you look at earlier posts they progressively get better. I, on the other hand, do not have progressively awesome pictures which I'm alright with because I'm not a professional food blogger!

 So, on to the crappy pictures!

My two sweet girls were actually awake to join me in the kitchen today

KIDS ARE MESSY!

Adding sprinkles to the batter

Adding sprinkles to the glaze

I decided to do a little tutorial on making pancakes. I think a lot of people aren't very good at making pancakes because they don't know when to flip them and also they cook them over too high of a heat. I preheat my griddle to 350, then I add the batter and turn it down to around 300, with these pancakes I cooked them around 275 because I wanted to be able to cook them on one side for longer without over browning the tops.

See the edge of this pancake? It looks kinda dry and dull, not wet and shiny, it will start bubbling soon.

Here are the bubbles, but! this doesn't mean they're ready to flip yet, be patient!

Hopefully you can tell, the edge of this pancake is pulling away from the griddle ever so slightly

The bubbles that have formed are not popping and filling back up with batter which means, time to flip!
I always bang my spatula on the side of the griddle to pop the bubbles to test if they are ready...

One beautifully cooked pancake!

My glaze turned a kinda funky purpley-pink color from the sprinkles, oh well.

NOM NOM!

These pancakes (with the glaze) were good but they were super sweet, the girls only had one each and they didn't even finish that, but without the glaze the pancakes were perfect for snacking on. They weren't crumbly pancakes, the cake mix made them kinda firm and spongy so they held together quite nicely. I had left the leftover stack on the counter, when I went to make dinner that evening they were mysteriously gone. 

Would I make these again? Probably not, either way, if I were you I'd give them a try, at least for a special occasion like a birthday or whatnot, they would make good "Surprise!" pancakes 

Wordless Wednesday: Sprouts!

Creekside Park

Did you happen to maybe notice my new tab ^^ up ^^ there ^^ on top ^^ titled 'Parks and Rec'? I've done a few park reviews on the blog and there are a TON of parks here in North Carolina so I decided to put them all under one nice convenient tab for you. My only regret is that I didn't do more reviews in Virginia, though I have been to quite a few parks in the Hampton Roads area, I'm sure I can look through all my pictures and do a few more reviews that I never got around to posting

...if I wasn't so lazy.

BUT

I digress, first park review for North Carolina shall be Creekside Park, located in Archdale. I'm not sure why we ended up at this park, I told Travis we wanted to go to the park and he drove us to this one. It's about 35 minutes away from us.

here it is!

This was a fairly nice park, it has baseball fields, a little gazebo, a rec center, a huge playground (which we didn't actually play on), some hilly trails (some paved, some not...), a disc golf course and all that other fun jazz, though it didn't have a bathroom that I could see close. Here are some pics from our trip!

View of baseball fields and gazebo

Char and Daddy headed to the trail

Sitting at the creek

This dragonfly landed on my back!

After I had stepped on a few rocks to get into the middle of the creek to take pictures, Travis points out a snake sunning itself on the rock right behind me, nice! (Note: sarcasm) I proceeded to hop back to the bank, meanwhile Travis stole the camera from me and started poking the snake with a stick. I warned him I would not take him to the hospital, he can be such a butt sometimes!

Poking it's little head out staring us down

We moved on to a non-paved trail that ran right along the side of the creek, which I thought was ridiculous because

1. Lexi was walking right along the edge

2. Travis is crazy allergic to Poison Ivy

Now, I'm no expert on the matter, I've never had Poison Ivy before, and I'm reallly not sure what it looks like but I think this is Poison Ivy.

Just so you know, I was bringing up the rear and took this picture after everyone nonchalantly walked right past this. I had to use my naggy voice and tell Travis to keep on the look out.

Little Lex sticking her toes in the water

Charlotte trying out her super awesome waterproof hiking "play shoes"

Lexi has to do everything Char does

Note to self: Never wear white shorts to park

Lexi was picking up rocks and throwing them into the water

Charlotte very proud of herself for climbing up there

When we were on our way back to the car I happened to be looking down while walking, good thing because I found myself staring at a strange little pebble that wasn't actually a pebble at all.

Alexis was quite unimpressed!

Back at the rocks we passed in the beginning

My two sweet girls!

Though the trail was enjoyable and the playground looked fun, this is a park we probably won't frequent, there are so many other parks closer to us that I highly doubt we'll be back here anytime soon. I am glad we were able to experience it though and if you're ever in the Archdale area be sure to check it out!

Pancake Sunday 7.10

Buttermilk Blueberry Pancakes

These were not buttermilk, like actual buttermilk you buy from the dairy section at the grocery store, they were

 butter. 

milk. 

pancakes.

Check out "Butter River"

I got the recipe for these simple but very delicious pancakes out of a Martha Stewart Everyday Food magazine. I love that magazine. I love Martha Stewart too.

Seriously, love her.

Not sure why the recipe called for a well in the dry mix, if the liquid just completely covered it.

 The batter was incredibly thin, the thinnest I've ever made. It actually worried me a bit, I had to keep checking the recipe to make sure I added the right amounts of everything! Not only was it thin but it was lumpy! Another thing I was worried about, you always see "batter will be lumpy" but this batter was extra lumpy and I really hate finding chewy lumps with powdery flour centers, but somehow the lumps worked themselves out while cooking

Look at those giant lumps!

Oh noes!

 If you read my pancake posts regularly, you know I like a crispy outside, there was enough butter in the batter that the tops were perfectly golden brown and crispy, sooooo good. I would recommend eating these pancakes immediately after serving if you like crispy pancakes!

Nice and crispy

The recipe made at least 20 pancakes, whoa!
Put some fresh blueberries on top, add syrup (I think powdered sugar would also be yummy) and chow down!

 NOM NOM NOM

 PS 

Be careful where you leave the leftover blueberries if you have a stinkerpot toddler 

like mine.