Santa Pancakes

Over the weekend, I made an obscene amount of pancake batter. With two hungry guys and a growling stomach of my own, I must've thought a small army was joining us for breakfast.

With a plate stacked high (seriously, something close to 62 pancakes), I shut the griddle down and walked away from the spatula.

When is enough...enough?

When your stretchy pants are no longer stretchy...that's when!

I was under the impression the pancake gluttony we experienced yesterday would've curbed our pancake cravings for a while...but when I asked Little Man what he wanted for breakfast this morning, he responded...wait for it...

"Pancakes, please."

Seriously, his stamina (and metabolism) is astounding.

Before you go thinking I'm the worst nutritional mom on the planet, let me reassure you...I packed the batter full of bananas and nuts. I know, Mom of the Year...right?

Back at the ranch...the remaining dough (from yesterday's extravaganza) yielded one GIANT pancake.

And because we like to play with our food, we transformed it into a Santa pancake!

Voila! Here's an easy step-by-step.

 

Little Man checked the above referenced ginormocake, making sure it was cool.

 

Once room temperature, we placed two milk chocolate chips on the pancake for the eyes and a slice of strawberry for the nose. Next, we used whipped cream (in the can...GASP) to make the beard.

 

We then dropped a thin line of chocolate syrup for the mouth. Caution: It runs so don't use very much. You can also substitute this for chocolate sprinkles or black licorice, get creative!

 

This was Little Man saying Santa needed a tongue...which led to the Mommy speech, "It's not nice to stick out your tongue, even if you're Santa"...which led to the exaggerated eye roll!

 

Finally, we placed halved strawberries as the red on Santa's hat and used a bit more whipped cream for the white.

 

Tada! Another happy, festive dish!

UPDATE: Because, at first glance, this seems like a sugar high waiting to happen and my Mom of the Year crown is beginning to tarnish...I wanted to update you that Little Man only ate the hat! Strawberries, whipped cream, and 1/3 of the ginormocake.

And the nose.

And maybe one eye!

 'Tis the season! :-)