Birthday-Worthy Swedish Pancakes
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The Music family has a saying about their holiday traditions: “Our tradition is that we don’t have traditions.” The first time I heard this, I swooned a bit, since I come from a family that’s rooted like a concrete block around special occasions: Marble cake on birthdays, artichoke lasagna on Easter, pasta with clams every Friday night, pasta e fagiole on Sundays, steamed lobster and corn for my birthday, osso buco for my dad and sister’s. The entire multi-course menu for Feast of Seven Fishes is immovable, don’t even bother with “what if this year we….”
But the one tradition the Musics swear by and stick to is Swedish Pancakes on birthday mornings. The recipe was passed down via Grandma Margaret, who also famously authored Pink Party Cookies.
For a family that loves to switch it up, these pancakes come with very specific rules: the birthday person receives them on a tray, in bed. The rest of the family has to sit and wait until the celebrated one is finished eating, and then they head to the kitchen to keep going with the rest of the batter.
We went away for a family vacation the year Leo turned one, but the next year (2005), my Music sister, Roz sent me the recipe, and I still have her email :
ok...
3 eggs
1t salt
1T sugar
1 1/2 c milk
1 1/2 c flour
1/4 c butter, melted
mix it all up in the blender
fry in crisco
good eating!!
and happy everything
xxooo
I’m sure I followed those measurements that year, when Leo was turning two. But over the years, something was going on in our house, because the recipe I use now has twice as many eggs and 2 more tablespoons of melted butter, and the same amount of flour.
I wish I could explain these modifications, but I can’t. All I can say is tweaks happen! And having prepped the batter multiple times a year for the past 18 years, our house pancakes became richer and eggier. Fernando, who has been eating them his entire life, didn’t kick this recipe out of bed in the morning
That’s the other part: these pancakes come with strict rules. The pancakes are meant to be delivered on a tray to the birthday person in bed, with all of their favorite toppings, and the rest of the family has to sit around and watch them eat to their fill before heading to the kitchen to finish up the rest of the batter. I love the commitment to consistency in this ritual, a sign of how important birthdays are in a family that’s happy to improvise on other important days.
I’m pretty sure we ditched the “in bed” part of this when Cosmo was a toddler; he’s not really a sit-still-and-don’t-spill-syrup-all-over-the-covers kind of guy. That’s why a lot of these pictures are at our dining table, where it’s easier to spread out with all the toppings and plates and run back and forth to the kitchen for a fresh one right out of the pan.
Amazingly, this video is being published on Cosmo’s actual birthday (today!). He’s not eating Swedish pancakes in bed right now because he got a sweet invite to sleep on campus with his big bro today, and I have a feeling the cafeteria breakfast experience is going to obliterate any nostalgia he might have had for the usual. Well, joke’s on him, because I’m going all the way down through the mental hard drive this AM, reliving all the birthdays but especially the day he was born, at home, exactly 14 years ago.
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