How to Make Mickey Mouse Pancakes

Make a smiley face from chocolate chips or berries. Looking to give your guest or child a sweet surprise? One easy way to do this is to add delicious extras to the batter to create a face for Mickey. For best results, you'll want something sweet and dark-colored (like chocolate or blueberries) so that you can see (and taste) the smile!

• Add the mouth and eyes on top of the pancake as soon as you've spooned in all the batter. This will give them time to sink into the batter so they're less likely to fall out.

Use banana slices for detailed eyes. To recreate Mickey's cartoon-style eyes, you'll just need a banana and a few berries or chocolate chips. For this, you'll want to wait for the pancake to cook completely on both sides. When you serve the pancake, cut two thin, oval-shaped pieces of banana (cut diagonally through the banana to get the oval shape). Place these two slices in the center of the head to make the whites of Mickey's eyes. Put a chocolate chip or berry in the bottom corner of each eye to make Mickey's pupils.

• If you want Mickey to have a mouth too, add a smile with the chocolate chips or berries before you flip the pancake the first time.

Use strawberry halves to make a bow for Minnie Mouse. Minnie Mouse's face is very similar to Mickey's, but she almost always wears a red or pink bow. To make this bow, chop a strawberry in half. When you serve the pancake, put the two halves at the top of Minnie's head so that the skinny ends touch to form the bow.

Use chocolate sauce to "paint" the dark parts of Mickey's face. Mickey's ears and "hair" are black. To recreate this, you can use chocolate sauce (or another dark-colored topping) to fill in these parts of the pancake. When the pancake is done, put a small amount of sauce on each ear and spread it around with the back of a spoon to color the ears. Then, color in the edges of the top half of Mickey's head with the sauce to make his "hairline."

• If you want your pancakes to be as accurate as possible, give Mickey a widow's peak. In other words, make his hair come together in a sharp point at the top of his forehead. You can look at any picture of Mickey or Minnie Mouse to see what this looks like.

"Layer" batter to create shaded sections. This trick is a little challenging, but it's great for making amazing-looking pancakes. You'll need a turkey baster or a pastry bag so that you can dispense small, detailed amounts of batter. The basic idea is to lay down batter for the darkest parts of Mickey's face first, then lay down batter for the lighter parts. The batter you add first will cook the longest, making it darker than the rest. See below for step-by-step directions:

• Put a little pancake batter in a turkey baster or pastry bag.
• Draw Mickey's mouth, nose, hairline, and eyes in the pan. For the eyes, don't fill in the "whites" yet — just draw the outlines and pupils. Add two scoops of batter where his ears will be. These should touch his hairline.
• Let these cook on their own for a minute or two until they get a light golden-brown color.
• Add a scoop of batter right in the center of the facial features. This will fill in Mickey's face and the whites of his eyes. It's OK if this batter spills over what you've already laid down. Use a spoon or spatula to get a circular shape for the face.
• When the second helping of batter turns golden-brown, carefully flip the pancake over and cook the backside as normal. You should see Mickey's features highlighted in the darker parts of the pancake.