SUNDAY CATCAKES

‘I know what you should make for special Sunday breakfast’, exclaimed Cinnamon as she came into my bedroom this morning. I already had something in mind which turned out to be the same as what she was requesting.

‘Pancakes’, she continued.

‘I was already thinking that’, I replied, and was delighted to see that we both had the same idea in mind.

Sundays are the one time during the week that I set out to make something which takes a little more time and effort than the rest of the week when we are usually hurry to get out the door. For almost every Sunday, this includes strawberries alongside anything that I might be making. French toast with strawberries, crepes with strawberries, and now pancakes with strawberries.

As I located my recipe and started to measure out the ingredients, Cinnamon came out of her room with a cookie cutter. It was in the shape of a cat. One which was bought on a trip to Williams Sonoma.

‘Can I use the cat cookie cutter for the pancakes’, asked Cinnamon.

‘Sure’, I replied.

The process of making Sunday breakfast is always a long one but well worth it. I had been working on my own recipe for buttermilk pancakes during the past year as every other recipe I had tried turned out to be a disappointment. The pancakes would be either too dry or too flat. In both cases, the flavour was found to be lacking. This would be the second time I tried my recipe and it turned out to be better than I remembered it being last time.

‘This doesn’t even need syrup’, exclaimed Saffron. I followed her lead and knew what she meant. The children realised that the syrup took away the taste of the pancakes. And they were right. The pancakes, or catcakes, tasted much better on their own along with the strawberries flavoured with fresh lemon zest and a touch of caster sugar.

The batter ended up making around 20 medium-sized pancakes and a few tiny ones which Saffron made as she poured the batter onto the hot griddle. The medium-sized pancakes were large enough to carve out a cat with the cookie cutter. The children were delighted and I was happy to be able to sit down with them for a slower paced breakfast this morning.

Not long after breakfast, I reluctantly drove to the house to finish washing the tiled floors downstairs. That was the last thing I wanted to do on a Sunday but I knew that it needed to be done. Only a few more weekends, I told myself, and this will be over.

Dinner was earlier than usual which was also good. I cooked up a new batch of linguine and warmed up the Alfredo sauce from the night before. The children declared that the Alfredo sauce tasted much better this time. After I had watered it down with some pasta water so it was not as thick.

For dessert, we finished the last of the catcakes from breakfast. The last day of June was nearing its end with the second half of the year before us with a promise of being much better than the first half had been.