Dear Vikki,

It’s almost time for teddy bears’ picnic day this Friday! This would have made the perfect excuse for a group lunch on what might have been a summer Friday. But alas, the world is very different now. We’ll just have to do it when the pandemic is over.

I may not have my childhood stuffed toys anymore, but I can still celebrate with a cute brunch at home!

Pancakes
Recipe from Hummingbird High
(Makes enough for half a dozen teddy bears)

½ cup (64 grams) all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon kosher salt
½ cup (113 grams) whole milk
1 large egg
1½ teaspoons canola oil
4 tablespoons (57 grams) unsalted butter, melted

1. In a bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Give it a quick stir or whisk.
2. Pour in the milk, egg, oil, and butter. Whisk until it’s all incorporated. Normally, I would say don’t over mix because it’s okay to have lumps in your pancake batter. But to make the circle shapes, it’s a lot easier when the batter is smooth.
3. Heat your best nonstick pan over medium heat. Brush on some canola oil.
4. Now, I don’t have a squeeze bottle or a fancy pancake batter dispenser, so use something that has a pour spout. Maybe your bowl has one already. If not, transfer it to a pitcher or something that does. You can also try this with a ladle. We need three different circle shapes to make the bear. One big one for the face. Two medium ones for the ears. And one small one for the snout.
5. When you see lots of bubbles forming on the batter, it’s time to flip it with a spatula. Then cook for another 30 seconds before removing.
6. At this point, you can also turn your heat lower, I find that slow burns work best for pancakes. Repeat with the rest of the pancake batter until they’re all cooked.

Gah, they’re so cute already. I loved assembling these teddy bears. I used chocolate chips for the eyes and nose. But you can use blueberries or a small dollop of Nutella.

Feel free to use cinnamon bun spread or peanut butter to act as a “glue” or to even out the pancake colour. I used some to create the inner ear of the bear.

Then for the mouth, two little lines of Nutella. I used a chopstick to do those (no pastry bag required), but a fork or knife would be able to create those lines too. It almost looks like a mustache? Howard said they were boogers (rolls eyes) when he was eating his.

They’re almost too cute to eat, but we love maple syrup so it wasn’t hard to convince us to start cutting into the pancakes and putting them in our bellies!

Sincerely,
Syl

*Disclaimer: I work at Tundra Books and have a copy of Teddy Bear of the Year by Vikki VanSickle (who is also my colleague) for work purposes. If you’d like more teddy bear activities, please click here.