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Pancakes are a Saturday morning breakfast tradition! Ensure your pancakes turn out perfect every time with our best tips for how to make fluffy pancakes!

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Pancakes for breakfast are a great way to start the day and they are probably one of the first things you learn to cook in the kitchen.

With that said, many people often ask what the secret is to making the most tender, fluffy pancakes.

So, after years of trying to perfect and master making pancakes, we thought we would share all of our best pancake making tips, tricks and hacks!

Be sure to scroll all the way to the end to find our favorite tried and true pancake recipes!

How to Make Fluffy Pancakes:

1. Make sure your baking soda and baking powder is fresh – For best results, fresh baking powder and baking soda is essential! It is recommended that once opened, to replace baking powder every 6 months and baking soda (when used for baking) every 6 -12 months.

2. Use buttermilk or a buttermilk substitute – Most pancake recipes call for baking soda as the leavening agent. However, for baking soda to work, it needs to be mixed with an acid to create a chemical reaction – the release of carbon dioxide gas- which causes the food to expand and become fluffy.

Buttermilk or buttermilk substitutes (like adding lemon juice to whole milk) are the acid you need to activate the baking soda to create tender, fluffy baked goods. Plus, real buttermilk will add a rich layer of flavor to your pancakes!

3. Whisk the egg whites separately from the egg yolks – Whether you are making pancakes or waffles, taking the time to separate your eggs makes a big difference in achieving fluffy pancakes. Mix the yolks in with the rest of the wet ingredients, then beat the whites into stiff peaks and fold them into the final batter.

4. Use room temperature ingredients – This tip not only applies to making pancakes but all baked goods. Unless the recipe specifically notes otherwise, be sure and let all your ingredients come to room temperature (or cool to room temperature if using melted butter) before using in the recipe.

This ensures that the ingredients are more easily incorporated into the batter, which in turn reduces the amount of whisking needed.

5. Don’t over mix – For fluffy pancakes, the batter should be lumpy. Lumps in the batter helps increase the batter’s volume and trap in air pockets which will result in taller, fluffy pancakes. Batter that has been whisked until smoothed will result in flat, gummy pancakes.

tips for making pancakes

6. Let your batter rest for 10 minutes – Allowing your pancake batter to rest will give the leavening agents time to activate before getting cooked. Resting the batter also allows for the gluten in the flour to relax and absorb more of the liquid. This will help create a thicker batter that results in fluffier pancakes!

7. Use a flat-bottomed pan, such as a crepe pan or electric griddle – This is a game changer to achieve perfect pancakes! Both a crepe pan and electric griddle are flat which helps pancakes cook evenly and makes it easy to flip the pancakes with a spatula.

8. Use medium low heat – Medium to medium low heat is key to cooking pancakes thoroughly and to prevent burning. On an electric stove, setting 3-4 is ideal and on an electric griddle we usually set it to 350 degrees.

9. Lightly grease pan – This is a bit of a controversial tip. Some claim if you are using a non-stick pan you don’t need to grease it. Others claim that when you cook pancakes you must lightly grease even nonstick pans, but say a neutral cooking oil is best.

However, in our opinion, we think using a tiny bit of butter to grease your pan is the key to perfect pancakes! Since you should be cooking pancakes on a low heat, the butter solids shouldn’t burn and will leave a nice layer of butter flavor on the pancakes.

If you prefer to not use butter, we suggest spraying the pan with cooking spray.

10. Wipe out the pan after each batch – With that said, we highly recommend using a paper towel to wipe out the pan between each batch of pancakes and reapply a fresh batch of butter or cooking spray.

Even though you are cooking at a low heat and the butter won’t burn initially, it could burn over time, which will cause your pancakes to burn and have an unpleasant taste.

tips for perfect pancakes

11. Use a large spring-loaded ice cream or cookie scoop to easily scoop and pour batter – We use our large spring-loaded ice cream scoop to easily scoop pancake batter. This creates pancakes uniform in size and shape and makes the process less wasteful and messy.

12. Make one test pancake – We always make one test pancake to make sure the pan is at the ideal temperature before making a larger batch.

13. Add mix-ins to the pancakes in the pan – If adding blueberries, chocolate chips, nuts, etc. to your pancake batter, sprinkle the mix-ins on top of the pancake batter once it is scooped onto the pan.

If you stir mix-ins directly into the batter, you risk over mixing the batter. In addition, mix-ins will add heaviness to the batter.

14. Be patient and don’t flip too soon! – You will want to flip pancakes just as the bubbles on the surface begin to form and pop and the edges are set and starting to turn golden brown. This will take about 2-3 minutes.

15. Don’t press down on the pancakes – After you flip your pancakes resist the urge to press down on your pancakes as this will cause the air bubbles to deflate and will yield flat pancakes.

16. Use real maple syrup – While we love to change things up and use different flavored syrups, nothing beats REAL maple syrup! Since real maple syrup should be refrigerated after opening, we always pour some in a microwave safe jar and warm the syrup for about 10 seconds in the microwave.

Equipment needed for perfect pancakes:

Electric Griddle – One of our biggest tips is to use a flat bottom pan or griddle. Using an electric griddle like this one, is a great way to regulate the cooking temperature, cook the pancakes evenly and cook several pancakes at once.

Crepe Pan – A crepe pan is also a great pan for cooking not only crepes, but also pancakes! Since it is a flat bottom pan it will cook the pancakes evenly over direct heat.

Large spring-loaded ice cream scoop – Use a large spring-loaded ice cream scoop to quickly and efficiently scoop and measure out pancake batter for cooking.

Kitchen Spatulas – A good quality spatula is key to being able to flip pancakes.

HOW TO KEEP PANCAKES WARM:

Preheat the oven to 175-200 degrees F. Place pancakes in a single layer on a wire rack that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Place the wire rack on a baking sheet and place in the preheated oven to keep warm while cooking the remaining pancake batter.

HOW TO FREEZE PANCAKES:

Pancakes freeze wonderfully! To make these pancakes ahead of time and freeze them, follow the recipe as directed and cool completely. Place cooled pancakes on a baking sheet in a single layer and freeze for 4-5 hours.

Once completely frozen, stack pancakes and place in freezer safe packaging.

To re-heat, place the desired number of pancakes on a baking sheet in a preheated 350-degree F oven for 15 minutes. Or heat pancakes from frozen in a toaster, until heated through and golden brown/

Alternatively, froze pancakes can be microwaved for 30 seconds to 1 minute, flipping halfway through cooking.

WHAT TO SERVE WITH PANCAKES:

Other breakfast foods that go well with pancakes are a cup of coffee with our homemade Tres Leches Coffee Creamer, bacon, sausage or scrambled eggs.

We also would recommend our Creamy Grape Salad, Summer Veggie Omelet Recipe and Black Bottom Chocolate Cherry Smoothie as great side dishes to serve with pancakes. 

Best Pancake Toppings:

• Chocolate chips
• Fresh fruit
• Sauteed cinnamon apples
• Butter
• Whipped cream
• Powdered sugar
• Real maple syrup
• Chopped Nuts
• Apple Cider Syrup
• Homemade Maple Syrup

Our favorite pancake recipes:

Spinach Pancakes – Whether you are looking for a healthy St. Patrick’s Day recipe or simply a hearty breakfast idea, then you need to check out these Spinach Pancakes! 

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes – Discover the ultimate recipe for Pumpkin Spice Pancakes! This simple and quick pancake recipe is fluffy and bursting with warm fall spices! 

Eggnog Pancakes – A holiday twist on a favorite breakfast recipe! These fluffy Eggnog Pancakes, topped with Eggnog Syrup and nutmeg, are perfect for Christmas brunch! 

Whole Wheat Sourdough Pancake Recipe – Looking for recipes to use up sourdough discard? Try these amazing overnight Whole Wheat Sourdough Pancakes! They are flavorful and melt in your mouth tender with the slightest sourdough “chew”!