Pancakes?

There is nothing like a big stack of piping hot pancakes with golden buttery syrup and pats of warmed butter to wake you up in the morning.  Or is there?  This weekend is my sweet Emmy's (Goddaughter) 2nd Birthday.  Her mother (my BFF) is having a Pancake and Pajama's themed Birthday party for her and asked me to make the cake and cookies.  Of course, I just had to come up with something amazing for her.  This was my first time making this cake but it was so easy, I whipped out my camera in a flash (no pun intended) and started taking pictures as i did each step.

This looks really hard doesn't it? 

Seriously?  It's really not.

The syrup is piping gel.  

I instead of tinting it with brown food coloring, I chose to put actual maple syrup right  in it.  It totally looks AND smells like pancakes.

Okay, here are the directions.  Let's just dive right in to those pancakes!

First, bake two 6 inch round cakes.  This is the closest size to a large pancake.  The cake can be any flavor...totally doesn't matter.  Then once cooled, frost with your choice of buttercream.  Apply it thin on the sides.  This is what your fondant will stick too.

Tint fondant with a dab of yellow and a dab of ivory.  You basically want an off white fleshy tone.

Roll out a thin rope.  Just use your hands and roll it on a silpat or surface dusted with cornstarch.

Start at the bottom of the cake and attach the rope pressing it lightly against the buttercream.  Then take brown food coloring and a dab (there is that word again) of vodka or lemon juice and mix until thinned.  Take a clean paint brush ( I have a special stash just for decorating cakes) and brush the top of each rope.  

Repeat all the way up the cake.  See?  It's that easy.  No measuring, no sculpting.  

Just roll, attach, paint.

For the top pancake, roll out fondant and trace your 6 inch baking pan on top of the fondant and then cut with  a sharp knife.  Attach to top of cake and finish by painting with the brown food color mixture.

Tint a small piece of fondant yellow and use a small square cutter to make the butter.  

For the syrup (this is the fun part)!  Take piping gel and add some maple syrup to it until it becomes the color you desire.  Some people like dark syrup or golden syrup...it really doesn't matter.  The beauty of this project is that there are NO right and wrong way.  You tint the colors of the fondant and piping gel to suit your party or your realistic version of a stack of pancakes.  I used a squeeze bottle and filled it up with the tinted gel and started at the butter and just pointed it in the direction I wanted it to go.  It's thick and not runny like syrup so YOU have to put it in the places it goes.  It will not drip there.  Once it's there...it's there.  No running off or mess.  It's awesome stuff!

I don't know about you, but I really have a hankering for Pancakes right about now.

Oh, and here's a picture of the pancake cookies I made for the party.  

  They're sugar cookies...I bet you can guess how I made these.