Swedish Pancakes

Josh Tilley

Ever since I was a little kid, I can remember my grandmother making Swedish pancakes for all my cousins and me on Christmas morning after we opened all our presents. We could smell the cardamom and we would drop what we were doing and run to he kitchen to help her with whatever she needed. We would all go and sit in the dining room wearing the sweatshirts, hats, and shoes we'd gotten for Christmas.

As we got older, I remember having competitions to see who could eat the most pancakes. We would all eat at least three or four pancakes apiece. The most I ever remember eating is eleven pancakes at one time. To this day, nobody has beaten my cousin Peter, who ate seventeen.

Ever since we moved away from my extended family, my mom has made the pancakes. She will make them at least once a month on the weekends. Also, she makes them on special occasions like our birthdays, Easter, Mother's Day, and Father's Day. Since we live down South now, we only go to my grandparents' house every other Christmas and spend it there, but the tradition of eating Swedish pancakes on Christmas morning still exists every December twenty-fifth.

Throughout the years, there has been a couple different ways to eat Swedish pancakes, but we only know of one way. First, take the pancake and put it on a plate. Take syrup and drizzle however much you want on the center of the pancake. Once you do that, take a spoon full of sugar and sprinkle it around the syrup. Then roll it up.

Some of my aunts and uncles like to make their pancakes different ways. You can put jelly or jams on the pancakes instead of syrup. I never got used to doing that, and to this day, I do the same thing and put the same toppings on my pancakes every time I eat them.