While *I’m* not a fan of cream cheese – my cheese lovin’ son IS. And since breakfast is also his fave meal of the day, I made up some pancakes filled with sweetened cream cheese. The touch of lemon zest adds just a little kick of freshness. The perfect send off for the first week of school.

ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 egg
2 Tablespoons cream cheese
1 Tablespoon softened butter
1-1/2 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup cream cheese
2 Tablespoon powdered sugar
1 Tablespoons lemon zest

In a small bowl stir together the cream cheese, powdered sugar and lemon zest. Set aside.

In a medium bowl combine the flour, baking powder, salt, brown sugar and cinnamon. Add the egg, butter, milk and vanilla until just combined.

Set your pan to medium high and add touch of butter. Watch the heat, you know how *I* am about my pancakes!

Ladle out the pancake batter. Add a dollop of the cream cheese mixture into the center of the pancake…

then top with more batter.

Once the bubbles start to pop, carefully flip the pancakes and cook the other side.

You can top these with syrup or strawberries, and you’ll be please to find a creamy center to brighten your morning!

Having made a TON of cupcakes recently – I found myself with a lot of leftover buttermilk. The bacon? I have no excuse. I never have leftover bacon. Who doesn’t love bacon?

Does the Mickey Mouse waffle iron make them taste better? I’d say…YES.

ingredients:
2 cups flour
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs
5 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled

Chop your bacon into small pieces – I like to do this raw so that I don’t have to crumble it afterwards. Then in a skillet, cook the bacon until nice and crispy. Drain and set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar and baking powder. Add the buttermilk and the eggs until just combined.

Make sure the bacon is nice and drained, you don’t want oily residue in your beautiful batter. Stir in the crumbled bacon.

Prep your waffle iron by brushing it with butter. Then cook until nice and golden brown.

You’ll find the buttermilk gives the waffle a nice fluffy texture and the bacon is IRRESISTIBLE with maple syrup. YUM.

Of course these are a breakfast specialty but the kids always ask for them for dinner!

I make A LOT of pancakes. I’m always looking for a way to change it up and surprise the kids – so one morning I added some matcha powder (powdered green tea) to the batter. The kids LOVED it! Topped with a nice strawberry compote, you have a unique, colorful, delicious breakfast.

ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
2 Tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons matcha (powdered green tea)
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups milk
1 Tablespoon melted butter

Strawberry compote (recipe, here)

Matcha can be found in the tea section of Japanese markets. Careful – that powder is potent and will get EVERYWHERE if you are not careful.

In a large bowl whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar and matcha.

Add the eggs, milk and butter until just combined.

Heat your skillet with a little butter and start making PERFECT pancakes.

Top with some Strawberry Compote and serve!

I make this as a quick topping for pancakes, but it works for cakes too!

ingredients:
1 cup strawberries
2 Tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

In a small bowl mash the strawberries a bit so they are in small chunky pieces. Pour it all into a saucepan, adding the sugar, and the lemon zest.

Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to low and simmer for two minutes until the strawberries break down a little more.

Let cool and serve.

I saw these in The Manga Cookbook which has a bunch of great recipes, but more importantly they are EASY.

The thing that caught my eye about these were how cute and SIMPLE they were, using very few ingredients – and you can make a momma and a hatchling! I think these eggs would be so cute for Easter!

ingredients:
eggs
black goma (sesame seeds)
1 carrot

If you are afraid of boiling eggs, don’t be. You don’t need a special boiler or one of those floaty things that tells you when it’s done – just do it the old fashioned way, plain and simple.

Carefully place your eggs in a pan. (I usually do 6 in a saucepan, if I do more I use a large pot.) Gently cover the eggs with about 1-2 inches of water.

Bring the pot to a boil – obviously watch it, don’t go far it will be boiling before you know it. Once it reaches a boil, turn the heat OFF. Cover with a lid, and let it sit there for 12 minutes.

Prep a bowl filled halfway with ice water, set aside. When the 12mins are up, drain the eggs and place them in the ice water to cool. Keep them in the fridge til you are ready to use them.

Once the eggs are cooled crack and shell them. If there are little pieces of shell stuck I like to run the egg under water and then dab it with a paper towel.

Now to prep the other ingredients let me first tell you, quite obviously you won’t need a whole carrot. Just an itty bitty tiny piece. Cut a slice of carrot, cutting out a small wedge shapes. Set aside.

As far as Black Goma is concerned finding black sesame seeds can be hard, but usually an asian market would be your best bet. You can find them online too.

For the momma chicks:

Take a toothpick and poke two holes for eyes. Place the black sesame seeds in.

Poke a hole with a toothpick and insert the carrot for the beak.

For the baby chicks:

This time slice the egg in half – carefully so you don’t tear the yolk – then do the same for the eyes and beak.

So simple, it’s hard to not want to make an army of baby chickie eggs!

I needed to use up some lemonade and some lemons, can you tell I love lemon?? So I threw this together on the fly. The fragrant aroma when these are baking makes me salivate. They are just perfect right out of the oven.

Why are these called drop scones? Because when I mixed up this dough it was a little tackier than I thought so instead of cutting it, as you would a normal scone, I ‘dropped’ them like cookies. The round-ish shape was rather nice.

ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ cup (1 stick) butter
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup milk
½ cup lemonade
Zest of one lemon
Pinch of salt

Crystallized sugar

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prep a baking sheet with a silpat or parchment.

In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, and baking powder. Using your fingers or a pastry cutter, cut in the butter. Get it all together so it’s nice and crumbly.

Add the egg, milk and lemonade until combined, then mix in the zest.

As I said, this batter is a little on the wet side, which is why you are going to scoop them rather than cut them.

Using two large spoons, scoop out and drop the batter onto the prepped cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes until nice and brown.

They are PERFECT warm, try and eat them right away! Great with some butter and whipped cream!

Sometimes you just need to change your average pancakes up and give ‘em a little extra something. In this case that extra something is tasty delicious Ovaltine.

ingredients:
1-1/2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 cup Ovaltine
1 egg
1-1/2 cups milk
2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, sugar and Ovaltine. I add A LOT, 1/2 cup, but if you don’t want the flavor that strong, a 1/4 will be fine. Chocolate or malt, choose your poison. I like to go old skool, malt all the way, baby.

Stir in the egg, milk, melted butter and vanilla. Just until combined, don’t overdo it!

Make pancakes as you normally would (if you want to see a good vs. bad pancake, go here.)

Serve these with Brown Sugar Bacon twists and your kids will jump for joy.

Brown Sugar. Cinnamon. Bacon. They are the three best friends you could ever have.

ingredients:
1 pound of bacon (1 slab)
1/8 cup brown sugar (approx)
1 Tablespoon cinnamon (approx)

As you know I hate frying bacon – so the oven is a good alternative with minimum clean up. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Line the bottom of sheet pan with foil. On top of that, place a wire rack.

Take the bacon and cut it in half. Essentially you will have double the amount, in small half pieces.

Take the bacon piece and twist it, laying it on the rack. It’s a little more difficult with these small half pieces, but just work with it and it will stay. I like to do this because I think it crisps evenly without having to turn it (I hate taking the time to turn things – lazy).

Now sprinkle the brown sugar and the cinnamon evenly over each piece. Be as heavy handed or as light with the ingredients as you want. The amount is just an approximation.

Bake for 20 minutes, then serve.

The kids love these and I like to serve them with Ovaltine Pancakes. And since they are smaller pieces that means you can eat more, right? Right.

We believe in ‘breakfast anytime’ around here. Waffles are one of the Kid’s absolute favorite foods. I’m sure it’s just a vehicle for syrup.

So why not have waffles packed in his lunch too? A few strawberries, a side of potatoes – breakfast, er lunch, fit for a king! It made him so happy he asked if he could have them for lunch everyday. Uh, not quite kid.

Chocolate Chip Waffles
Mochi Waffles (moffles)
Cinnamon Vanilla Waffles

A pocket of Nutella right in the middle of your pancake would make your day so much better, don’t you agree?

ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
1 egg
1-1/2 cups milk
Nutella

In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Add the egg and milk and stir until just combined. If you need more milk, add by the Tablespoonful.

Make pancakes as you normally would, then add a dollop of Nutella right in the middle. (Feel free to ignore how disgusting this picture looks:)

Top with a little more batter to form a pocket. Once the bubbles start to pop and the bottom is browned, carefully flip the pancake over. (If you want to see my dissertation on Good pancakes vs. Bad pancakes, go here.)

The fun part is seeing the kids faces as they bite into these, however if you are the Baby he angrily demands why the entire thing isn’t make out of Nutella, no pancake necessary…