Hm. This post is a bit of a cheat. But I have an excuse! But the excuse sounds a bit like I'm complaining about the last couple days (I kind of am) but my last two posts complained about my birthday, and the one before that complained about ants, and I don't want you to think this is a complain-y sort of blog. Overall, my life is pretty good.
But I'm still gonna cheat a bit on this post. But I still have an excuse.

OK. Here's the deal. I absolutely made these pancakes this morning, and I started with the intention of making pancake cake. But the cake part never came about, and these photographs are from a previous making of this cake. To explain and excuse this trickery, let me tell you about my day yesterday.

Yesterday was Friday. Friday the 13th. I'm not superstitious, I'm really not, and my first realization of the date was the looping coverage of the traditional convergence of bikers in Port Dover on CNN in the waiting room at the hospital. Yeah. I'm not going to bore you with all the details, but suffice it to say, we visited the emergency room, a walk-in clinic (twice), the urgent care clinic (twice) and the drugstore (twice) in the last 24 hours. Aidan has a splint on his thumb and a steroid cream for his blistering case of poison ivy, and Jack has stitches in his cheek and antibiotics to prevent infection from the dog bite. And, I didn't manage to finish the fight with my old doctor to get our medical records transferred to our new doctor, so the new doctor is going to have a bit of surprise on Monday when all the emergency records appear on his desk.

Anyway, I started cooking this morning with the plan in my mind to make pancake cake, but then Jack came to me with this sad little bandaged face and reminded me that he's not supposed to open his mouth wide or chew too much, or his wound will open up again, so we stopped short of cake and just had pancakes, slathered in butter and sopping in maple syrup, to make them extra-soft for him.

Why don't you just post the recipe for pancakes then? A valid question. I was a bit frazzled this morning. Last night had been a rather miserable night, and I wasn't quite awake this morning. So I didn't photograph the pancakes I made. But I have photos of the pancake cake I made previously. And it's what I intended to make today. So this post is both. Obviously, if you don't want pancake CAKE, just stop after you've made the pancakes, and eat them. But I encourage you to try the cake route - it's lovely and festive and cheerful.

For the pancakes - measure out all the ingredients before you begin mixing. These pancakes are light and fluffy if mixed well, but if you add the dry ingredients to the egg without having the milk and lemon juice ready to add as well, you get a thick glop that doesn't play well with the rest of the ingredients.

2 eggs
2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tablespoon of sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups of milk (I use 2%)
½ cup of lemon juice
¼ cup of butter, melted
½ teaspoon of vanilla

Beat the eggs until frothy. Add all the other ingredients, and mix until well combined.

For the cake - allow the pancakes to cool to room temperature. Whip 2 cups of whipping cream with ¼ cup of cornstarch to help it set. Whip until you have soft peaks. Clean and remove leaves and stems from your choice of berries. I used 1 pint of strawberries (sliced), ½ pint of raspberries and ½ pint of thimbleberries. Combine the fruit in a large bowl, sprinkle lightly with sugar and mix gently.

Layer your cake. Place one pancake on a flat plate, spread with whipped cream and spoon berries around the edges of the pancake. (Leave the middle free of berries - pancakes are usually thicker in the middle, by not putting berries there, you can maintain level layers, which will keep your cake from sliding off to one side.) Top with another pancake and keep layering. Pile any remaining fruit generously on top, and drizzle with maple syrup. Serve immediately, slicing as you would a regular cake.

Happy Saturday the 14th.

*edit, yes, this recipe has 'buttermilk' in the name, but no buttermilk. We've found the flavour of lemon juice and milk is much nicer, but for whatever reason, still call them buttermilk pancakes.