At our house during the week, breakfast-time goes like this:

“Tillie, do you want a breakfast burrito, grilled cheese sandwich or Cheerios?”

I know, that’s not what you usually think when it comes to a breakfast menu, but it kind of works for us, even though, if I were to admit it, the grilled cheese option has pretty much gone out the window. So essentially, it comes down to two choices: the burrito or Cheerios.

But a kid can’t just go on that alone: even though she seems to be making it work somehow. Doesn’t she want more from life than that?

Dear old dad should be doing more to help her out, so I decided at last one recent morning to take action against the breakfast rut and make something I’ve long had my eye on, pancake bars.

This was a recipe I saw months ago on Kitchen Daily and thought it could be the perfect on-the-go dish for the family that more often than not finds itself at the bus stop in the morning wondering, “Will we ever get this to kid to school on time?”

Anyway, I asked Tillie if she was up for helping off and she raced off to grab her apron. While she was doing that, I had to figure out the most crucial part of the meal:

How to make pancake batter.

I know, how could I think of making “pancake bars” without the pancake part. Luckily, that’s what Mr. Google is for, to help out in those moments of necessity! I chose this one from AllRecipes.com, figuring old-fashioned has to be good, right?

When Tillie came down, I told her I had to run across the street to get a couple of things, among them more chocolate chips, a move she readily endorsed as our at-home stash had dwindled down. My mother-in-law was visiting, so I left T with her as my wife slept. Upon my quick return, we were ready to get down to it.

I followed the recipe for the pancake batter down to a T and felt pretty good about it. Since Tillie always helps Nancy with the pancake making at our house, I asked her if I had the consistency down and she told me I got it right. Then came the add-ins: honey almond granola and chocolate chips. The recipe didn’t say how much granola to put in but did mention you can add as many chocolate chips as you’d like, so I put in a pretty good amount.

After giving Tillie a plate of chocolate chips to snack on, our mix was good to go into the oven. After the recommended cooking time, I the tray out, but it was lacking that golden hue found in 99.9 percent of the pancakes of the world. I threw the tray under the broiler for a little tanning, but it still didn’t get as dark as I liked.

Oh well, we still had to eat and after a little cooling, I cut the dish into the size of breakfast bars and served one up to Tillie. My wife was down by this time and all the adults were eager to hear what T thought.

Turns out she loved it!

All was good—or so I thought.

My wife said of course she would: it has chocolate chips in it. My counterpoint was that we eat pancakes with syrup: what’s the difference? Plus it has granola—that’s healthy, right?

We all tried them and thought they had a nice taste, but Nancy thought they were too salty. (My pancake recipe called for salt: guess that’s how they made them in “old-fashioned” times.) But I was just happy to have something Tillie could take on the go before breakfast or camp as she seemed to be digging them—for a couple of minutes anyway.

As Nancy and I were standing over by the counter, Tillie walked over and said, “I’m never eating those again. I don’t like the top of them.” I looked over at her plate and the chocolate chips that sunk to the bottom were pretty much gone. It was almost proof of what Nancy said to me, that I was serving her cake for breakfast.

Oh well, at least she had a day’s respite from Cheerios or a breakfast burrito, even if it took cake to make that happen.