The MAN CAKE {Recipe}

Well, its time for me to tell you about the Man Cake I made for Father’s Day breakfast.  I got the idea from a blog called Creative Tryals.  You can see her post about her Man Cake HERE.  I loved the idea and knew this would be something my husband would adore.  So, I made this for him for breakfast.  Here is how it turned out:

It was DELICIOUS and super fun!  Here is how I made it:

I gathered all the ingredients.  I knew there had to be a method to my madness to have it all be done at the right time and warm when we ate it. 

My kids PIGGED OUT on this.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen them eat so much breakfast.  My husband and I also had generous portions and there was still a couple pieces left over.  You could make a smaller one if you had less people.  For this one, I used 8 eggs, 1 pound of bacon, 1 cup cream, 1 pint strawberries, and about 3/4 of that bag of hash browns.  I made a big bowl of pancake batter so I wouldn’t run out in the middle.  There was extra so we made it into more pancakes after breakfast to save for later.  So, here is how I handled it all:

1. Get bacon and hash browns cooking on the stove (I use butter to cook my hash browns).  To cook my bacon to the prefect doneness I cut the whole package in half so the pieces aren’t so long.  Then I put my cast iron skillet over high heat and put all the bacon slices into the pan one by one.  They will be on top of each other but that is ok.  After it gets going I turn it down to medium to medium high and stir it often.  Just before it looks perfectly done, I take it out and let it drain on paper towels.  It seems to cook a bit more once its out of the pan.

2.  While the bacon and hash browns were cooking, I prepared the pancake batter and washed and sliced (large slices, about 3 per strawberry) the strawberries.  I whipped the cream and added some powdered sugar to it to sweeten it.  I had my son scramble the eggs in a bowl.

3.  Once the hash browns and bacon were done I put them in a 275 degree oven to stay warm.  I also placed a cookie tray with a baking cooling rack on it to place the pancakes on as I got them done. (Please ignore my dirty pizza stone).

4.  Then I started on the pancakes.  I used a large skillet.  I sprayed the pan lightly with Pam and poured in some pancake batter, swirling the pan to spread it out to the very edges.  I also preheated a griddle pan on another burner and sprayed it lightly with Pam.  Pancakes should be cooked over a fairly low heat, no higher than medium.  Make sure your pan is preheated before you start though.  Once the pancakes was done on the one side, I flipped it over onto the griddle pan (my husbands idea!).  This worked well and I’m sure better than trying to flip it into the same pan.  Once the pancake was onto the griddle pan I started again with the next pancake in the skillet.  Once a pancake was done I placed it into the oven on my tray to keep it warm.  I made 5 pancakes but only ended up using 4 because I was afraid the whole thing would topple.  I think it worked well with only 4 because it kept the strawberries from getting really hot.

5. Once the last pancake was in the large skillet I used another burner to preheat my egg pan.  Once I got the skillet free and out of the way I moved the egg pan to that burner and started scrambling the eggs.

6.  Once the eggs were done it was time to assemble the cake.  I removed everything from the oven and used a large cake platter for the Man Cake.  I layered a pancake (buttered), hash browns, pancake (buttered), eggs, pancake (buttered), bacon, pancakes (buttered), strawberries, whipped cream, and a couple strawberries on top.

7.  We served the cake at the table, cutting it like a cake and topping each piece with maple syrup.  It was superb!  Here are my boys about to enjoy it!

I’m pretty sure the MAN CAKE will become a Father’s Day tradition.  It really made things special!