Banana Pancake Snowmen

Christmas at the cottage. The family together. Luc home for three weeks. Colette photographing everything — she's documenting the cottage the way I document the recipes, frame by frame, angle by angle, as if she knows (and she does know, the artist knows) that the cottage won't be here forever and the photographs will. Rémy cooked Christmas breakfast: pain perdu from Mama's recipe in the journal, the French toast that Marie-Claire insists is Cajun, soaked in custard and fried in butter until golden.

Gifts: practical and precious. Luc: a leather messenger bag for campus. Colette: an art supply case, professional-grade. Rémy: a whetstone for his knife — a good one, Japanese, because the boy's knife skills demand a serious sharpening tool. And for Mama: a framed collection of Colette's paintings of the cottage, all four versions, arranged chronologically. From the colored-pencil version at eight to the oil painting at thirteen. Four stages of the same cottage. Four stages of the same granddaughter seeing the same place and painting it with increasing skill and deepening love. Mama held the frame and didn't speak. The not-speaking was everything.

Rémy’s pain perdu that morning — golden, custard-soaked, fried in real butter — is the kind of dish that doesn’t just feed a family, it holds one together. If you want to bring that same reverence to your own Christmas morning table but add a little of the wonder Colette was busy photographing from every angle, these Banana Pancake Snowmen are the answer: playful enough for the children in the room, made with care worthy of the grandmothers watching. It’s the sort of breakfast that gets remembered the way a framed painting gets remembered — not for what it is exactly, but for what it meant on the morning it was made.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 4 (2 snowmen each)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 cup buttermilk
1 large egg
2 ripe bananas, mashed (about 3/4 cup)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for the griddle
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Mini chocolate chips, for eyes and buttons
Pretzel sticks, for arms
Powdered sugar, for dusting (optional)
Maple syrup, for serving

Instructions

Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, and sugar until combined.
Combine wet ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk the buttermilk, egg, mashed bananas, melted butter, and vanilla until smooth.
Make the batter. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir gently until just combined — a few small lumps are fine. Do not overmix or the pancakes will be tough.
Rest the batter. Let the batter sit for 5 minutes while you heat the griddle. This allows the baking powder to activate and gives you fluffier results.
Heat the griddle. Warm a large nonstick griddle or skillet over medium heat. Add a small knob of butter and let it melt and coat the surface evenly.
Cook the large rounds. For each snowman’s body, pour about 3 tablespoons of batter onto the griddle to form a round approximately 3 inches across. Cook until bubbles form across the surface and the edges look set, about 2–3 minutes, then flip and cook 1 minute more. Transfer to a warm plate.
Cook the small rounds. For each head, pour about 1 1/2 tablespoons of batter to form a round approximately 2 inches across. Cook the same way. You need one large and one small pancake per snowman.
Assemble the snowmen. On each plate, set a large pancake as the body and place a small pancake directly above it as the head, overlapping slightly. Press mini chocolate chips gently into each snowman for eyes and buttons. Insert pretzel sticks at the sides of the body for arms.
Finish and serve. Dust lightly with powdered sugar to suggest a dusting of snow. Serve immediately with warm maple syrup alongside.

Nutrition (per serving)

Banana Pancake Snowmen — The Christmas Morning Table Rémy Made Sacred