Multicolored Pancakes

This morning Lizzy and I decided to make pancakes for breakfast. Then Lizzy suggested we make fun shapes--like a whale. Now she was getting excited: "And we could use blue food coloring to make it into a blue whale and you could eat it!" (Blue whales are my favorite animals--a fact Lizzy is very aware of; favorites, of course, are a big thing for 7-year-olds.) The whale idea was quickly followed the notion of making a flower with yellow in the middle and with red petals. And thus our breakfast plans turned into an art project. (See finished whale above; the green splotch at the top is the whale's spout.)

If you decide to make multicolored pancake sculptures, here are a few tips:

1. Find several small bowls into which you can put small amounts of pancake batter.



2. Using food coloring, you can create different colors of batter in each bowl to use in your creations.

3. We found two ways to make pancake art.

• First: You can use a color for each part of the sculpture and add to it. For the flower (left), for instance, you can pour a circle for the center of the flower and then using a different color you can create all of the petals.
  
• Second: You can use one color of batter to create a "canvas" of batter" and then "paint" on the canvas with other colors. For the target (above), for instance, you pour a large circle of batter and then pour other circles on top of the pancake.

4. The pancake colors are going to be much prettier before you flip the pancake, so if you want to take pictures, do it right after you finish pouring.