pancakes with friends

a breakfast party

growing up, my parents and i would head over to a family friend's house for pancakes a few times every month. it was always a highlight of my week: seeing our friends, laughing, and catching up in the comfort of their home. and all of it took place over pancakes.

when testing my recipe for a big-pan pancake, i realized that, in adulthood, none of my friends had ever invited me over for pancakes. actually i realized i hadn’t invited any of them over for pancakes, and i needed to correct that.

so, during the testing process, i had friends over for pancakes – twice!

this is a low-stakes way to host. i don’t know about you, but i do have a tendency to overdo dinner parties: i plan to make too many things, i put unnecessary stress on myself in the days leading up to it, and i turn into a total grouch. then there are the piles of dishes after everyone leaves, keeping me out of my bed when i would like to be asleep after a long night. pancakes, on the other hand, are the opposite. they are easy to prep and cook and are–arguably–just as enjoyable as an elaborate dinner party. what is better than a leisurely morning feast? not much, to me at least.

unlike a dinner party, the only prep i did was planning the menu the day before. i decided to make one big-pan pancake for us to share, with thick-cut bacon and fried eggs on the side. for ‘dessert’, i made 1/2 batch of my donut x pancake recipe.

the morning of hosting i made the pre-ferment for the pancake batter and let it rise while i prepared everything else. first on the list, preparing the anglaise and spiced sugar for the donut pancake. then, i put coffee cups, water glasses, plates, cutlery, napkins, butter, and maple syrup on the table. since i had some spare time, i baked off some cookies from my freezer stash (from testing a hazelnut chocolate chip cookie recipe coming out next week!) for my friends to take home. the bacon then went into the oven, and once that came out, the pancake went in. the best part about this recipe is that you cook it in the oven, this means you can enjoy stress-free time with your guests as they arrive. i only headed back into the kitchen to fry some eggs (sunny side up) in butter while théo prepared coffee and tea for our guests.

i plated the bacon and eggs on one platter, and the pancake over maple syrup on another. once that first pancake was gone, i prepared the donut pancake, adding sliced bananas into the batter (an excellent choice). i was worried doing the dessert pancake would be too much (both in the sense of too much pancake and in my being over-the-top), but it wasn’t, it was fun having both options (there was only one micro-slice left)!

our relaxed morning at the table soon passed into an even more relaxed afternoon on the couch with some leftover wine from the day before. it felt like a lazy, lovely spring morning, and i can’t wait to do it again.

gifts from friends <3