Mayer's Birthday Brunch

I wanted to do something a little different for Mayer's first birthday party. We have gotten used to summer birthday parties- outside, with swimming/ playing in the water and cooking on the grill. None of those things are December birthday-friendly activities. Breakfast foods seem to be his favorite, so I thought a brunch might be fun.
To save time and stress for me, I got some pre-made, frozen mini quiches. I also found an easy egg casserole recipe for the crockpot (I'll post at the bottom because can't remember the link). Mayer has a definite sweet tooth (like me), so it was hard to pick the sweet part of the menu. I found a super easy pineapple upside-down biscuit recipe from Paula Deen. I'm not sure I pushed the biscuit down over the pineapple mixture, but we scooped the entire thing out of the muffin tin and put it in a cupcake liner, which worked out great.
I was having a hard time coming up with a cake idea that I thought would work. Coffee cake, with its traditional crumbly topping, didn't seem like a good idea for a one year old. Mayer likes panCAKEs and it sounded like a fun idea. Since it was his birthday, I wanted something extra special. One of my favorite food blogs, Chocolate Covered Katie, has a lot of fun pancake recipes, but I wondered if there were recipes for a birthday cake pancake. I found several ideas. There was one that used Bisquik, which is what I usually use when I make pancakes. It seemed easier than making the batter completely from scratch (I'm typically a lazy impatient chef!), but they didn't seem special enough.
The most common recipe floating around online seemed to be one with yellow cake mix and sprinkles. Yellow cake is one of my favorites, so it sounded good to me! The only topping suggested seemed to be a glaze, but if I'm going to have yellow cake, I prefer a chocolate topping. My solution (after I double checked with my best friend to make sure it was OK for her son with a peanut allergy)- Nutella! We had some leftover vanilla cream cheese frosting leftover from the red velvet cookie cake we had on his actual birthday, as an option.

Birthday cake pancakes are a new family tradition because these are AWESOME! When I make them again, I am going to try switching up the recipe a bit. The original calls for 1 1/2 c flour and 2/3 c yellow cake mix. I'm thinking there should be more cake mix and less flour. I'm also wondering how easy it would be to make them chocolate... and instead of sprinkles, peppermint pieces...

 I wish I would have gotten a better picture of Tate! He decided Mayer's birthday was a fancy enough occasion to wear his "tax-e-toe." My nephew, Drew, brought his spare bowtie for Myer, but he pulled it off before anyone could get his picture.

The crockpot egg casserole recipe:
1 dozen eggs, scrambled
1 c milk
1 package (32 oz) frozen hash brown potatoes
1 1/2 c shredded cheese
1 lb bacon or sausage, cooked and drained
Layer the potatoes, cheese and meat three times. Top with the eggs and milk mixture. Cook on low 10-12 hrs (this definitely varies because mine was done in about 8)