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Wondering how to make pancakes from scratch? This easy recipe makes fluffy homemade pancakes that come together in less than 30 minutes. Get ready to dig into a stack of the best pancakes you’ve ever had!
Pancakes are one of my all-time favorite breakfast ideas. This easy pancake recipe makes fluffy pancakes just begging to be stacked tall and drenched in maple syrup. I like to serve them with fresh fruit like blueberries and strawberries, which is the twins favorite combo. In fact, this pancake recipe is so easy that I’ve been making it for them before their swimming lessons early in the morning!
Why You’ll Love This Pancakes Recipe
- Simple ingredients. They are easy to throw together and are made with ingredients you typically already have in your kitchen.
- Flexible. They are easy to change up with different mix-ins and toppings. Add some chocolate chips or fresh blueberries to the batter, or serve the finished pancakes with everything from maple syrup to whipped cream.
- Fluffy! These pancakes come out tender and fluffy. Think of the best stack of pancakes you’ve ever had at a diner. That’s these pancakes.
- Can be made ahead. Did you know you can make a batch of pancakes on Sunday, then store them in the fridge for easy weekday breakfasts? They also freeze well. More on all this below.
What You’ll Need
Making pancakes from scratch only requires a few simple ingredients. (You can even use this recipe to make a DIY pancake mix ahead of time – see details later in this post.)
To make homemade pancakes you will need:
- All-purpose flour – I haven’t tested this with whole wheat flour.
- Sugar – The recipe calls for regular white sugar, but you could also use light brown sugar.
- Baking Powder – This helps the pancakes rise and achieve a super fluffy texture.
- Salt – Adding salt to recipes in moderation can enhance the sweetness.
- Egg – This also makes the pancakes fluffy while also supporting the structure of the pancake.
- Milk – Any kind of milk will do, including plant based milks.
- Butter – I prefer to use unsalted butter. If you are using salted butter you may need to adjust the amount of salt used separately.
- Vanilla – Always use pure vanilla extract.
That’s it! Odds are you already have most of this in your kitchen. These pancakes were meant to be.
How to Make Homemade Pancakes from Scratch
So now that I’ve told you these are easy, fluffy and delicious, let’s talk about how to make them.
- Combine the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients separately. Mix the wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Use a large bowl for the dry ingredients.
- Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients. Gently fold them together. You don’t want to do this too brusquely or overdo it. It can over develop the gluten in flour and end up giving you dense, tough pancakes. You’ll end up with some lumps in your batter and that’s ok.
- Heat the griddle. Let the batter rest while you heat your griddle or pan. Give the batter another little stir before using it and you’ll notice any remaining lumps will break up a bit.
- Cook your pancakes. Spoon batter onto your griddle about 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup at a time, depending on how large you want your pancakes to be.
- Flip. You’ll know they are ready to be flipped when they’ve got bubbles coming through the top and the edges are set. I usually cook them until they are just about done, so after I flip them, they just need a little more time to finish cooking the other side so that it’s golden.
- Dig in! Finally, serve your pancakes warm with your favorite maple syrup!
Options Mix-In Ideas
One of the best things about making homemade pancakes from scratch is that you can add some of your favorite mix-ins. Here are some ideas:
- Chocolate chips
- Fresh blueberries or raspberries
- Crispy cooked bacon that’s chopped into pieces.
- Sprinkles
- Lemon zest
Tips for Success
- Check the date on your baking powder: Baking powder is the leavening agent that makes these pancakes super fluffy. Baking powder expires though, so make sure you check the expiration date.
- Don’t over mix. Be sure not to over mix your pancake batter so that you don’t get tough, dense pancakes. Lumps are ok.
- Use a flat cooking surface. For a nice looking pancake, cook on a flat surface. A griddle is preferable.
- Make smaller pancakes. Don’t make your pancakes too large, or they’ll be difficult to flip.
- When to flip a pancake: Your pancakes are ready to be flipped when you see plenty of bubbles coming through the surface and the edges are set.
- Keeping pancakes warm: I like to preheat my oven to 200F and place a baking sheet inside the oven with a rack on top. Then I place the pancakes on the rack to keep warm while I finish cooking the rest of the batter. This way everyone gets warm pancakes when it’s time to serve. The reason I add a wire rack on top of the sheet pan is to prevent the pancakes from gathering moisture in the oven, which can make them soggy.
Want to Make Pancake Mix With This Recipe?
If you wanted to make these pancakes even easier to make, you could combine the dry ingredients ahead of time and have it in your pantry as a pancake mix. You’ll want to put it in an airtight container. It should keep well, as long as the flour and baking powder you use is fresh.
How to Store and Reheat Extras
- Store in the fridge: Let the pancakes cool completely, then store them in an airtight container for up to one week.
- To reheat: Microwave one pancake for about 20 seconds. Add another 5-10 seconds as you add additional pancakes. If you know you’re going to have pancakes in the morning, you could even pop the number of pancakes you’ll need into the fridge the night before so they thaw (which is what I’ve been doing).
Want to Freeze Your Pancakes?
Homemade pancakes are so easy to freeze and reheat later. You can either layer parchment paper between the pancakes when you freeze them so they don’t stick to each other, or you can lay the pancakes out individually onto a parchment lined baking sheet and freeze them that way. Once frozen, pop them all into an airtight container or bag.
More Pancake Recipes
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Fluffy Homemade Pancake Recipe
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 25 minutes
- Yield: 15-20 pancakes
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Stove
- Cuisine: American
Description
This Homemade Pancakes Recipe makes soft & fluffy pancakes. Get ready to dig into a stack of the best pancakes you’ve ever had!
Ingredients
- 2 cups (260g) all-purpose flour
- 4 tbsp (52g) sugar
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 large egg
- 1 1/2 cups (360ml) milk
- 4 tbsp (56g) butter, melted and slightly cooled
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Instructions
- Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl.
- In a large measuring cup, combine the egg, milk, butter and vanilla extract.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and gently fold them together until well combined, but still a little lumpy. You don’t want to over mix them or they could end up less fluffy and tough. The batter should be relatively thick, but easily pourable.
- Set the batter aside to rest while you heat the griddle, 5-10 minutes. Any remaining lumps with start to soften as the moisture soaks in. Gently stir again.
- Heat a griddle or non-stick pan over medium-low heat and melt a little butter to grease it. Pour batter onto the pan and let it spread out into a round pancake. I used about 3 tablespoons of batter per pancake.
- Allow to cook until bubbles appear on the surface and the edges are set, then flip and cook until golden.
- Continue cooking with the remaining batter.
- Serve pancakes with maple syrup or your choice of toppings.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 pancake
- Calories: 89
- Sugar: 3.5 g
- Sodium: 71.8 mg
- Fat: 2.7 g
- Carbohydrates: 14 g
- Protein: 2.3 g
- Cholesterol: 15.8 mg
Categories
Recipe originally from Cafe Delights.
I like your baking
BEST pancakes ever!! I’ll never buy store bought mix again.
Amazing! Such a great texture and lightness and will be a great base for other flavors of pancake! To modify to our taste, I added 1tbsp less sugar, 2 cups milk, 1tsp almond extract, and made them Lemon-blueberry by adding the zest of one lemon and a cup of blueberries.
Finally found a recipe that actually gives me fluffy pancakes!! So glad I stumbled upon your site! Thank you so much!! Blessings!
When I added the melted butter to the batter It got all lumpy and hard, I dont know what I did wrong.
The butter is warm and is being added to cold ingredients, so that can happen. You can let the butter cool a bit before adding it if you like, but it really should be fine even if it’s a little lumpy.
I love pancake Sunday’s with my hubby. We always make pancakes with the Stonewall Kitchen brand. We ran out of the mix and I scoured the internet for a pancake recipe based on reviews. This was our first time making pancakes from scratch and we loved this recipe! We followed the directions to a tee and can’t wait to make and eat them again every Sunday going forward! Thank you!
You should make the bannana and keep the chocolate chips, I don’t know if you have kisses chocolate, but if you use an ice cream scooper, scoop some pancake in it then insert the kisses, it melts in the middle, and it is a nice surprise!!!
These turned out excellent! It’ll be our go-to for pancakes for a long time to come 🙂 The best part is the mix is the perfect amount for one round of pancakes in our family of 6!
Thank you so much!
The BEST pancakes I’ve ever eaten!!!
My kids love banana chocolate chip pancakes so I actually made the recipe exactly as is but mushed up two overly ripe bananas and threw in a couple chocolate chips as well. They were sooooo good! I thought the batter looked super thick and dense but once I cooked them they were so light and fluffy. Thank you!! 🙂
Also I did have to spread out the batter a bit to avoid them being insanely super thick. Might have been the bananas I threw in. But with the bananas it was so delicious and sweet. Barely needed any maple syrup
SOOOOOOOO good !!! Iove it. I made it for my parents with my brother and it was DELICIOUS. I only made 1/2 of the recipe because I did’nt know how many pancakes it makes. It makes a LOT! I was able to make 12 little pancakes!!!!!!! And there was still some batter left over. We are gluten intolerint so, we put gluten free all purpuse flower and it worked the same. Acatually, I think it tasted better!!! Thank you for your delicious recepie!!!
I was saying I forgot to get some pancake mix from the store yesterday and my son loves for Daddy too cook pancakes on Sundays it’s a Jones Thing lol. I found this recipe my son said Daddy I don’t want to store pancakes anymore Thanks for saving the JonesJones Sunday morning
Hi Lindsay, i made these pancakes last night it was rainy and cold here in New England . They were easy to make, your recipe and directions were perfect. And we LOVED them. I cooked the whole batch and had a few left over. To good to throw away. I put them in the toaster For lunch and they were perfect. Such a keeper recipe. Thank you and be safe. Hugs, Sally
…made this for my autistic son, whose picky about everything- now, for the past 3 days I’ve been making this for his breakfast- “pancakes from scratch, pancakes from scratch!!”- hes very very specific that it MUST be these! Lol- thanks for such an amazing recipe- no changes were made!!! it’s perfect-
I saw someone comment about using plain flour, yes you can! That’s what we call it in New Zealand, plain flour is perfect for cakes, pancakes, muffins etc 🙂
Hi Lindsay, I made these pancakes on the first week of lockdown in New Zealand and they turned out amazing! I wanted to make pancakes again today for my son but realised I hadn’t saved your recipe, so I looked up some random recipes, first one was a fail, second was a fail, then by luck i found your recipe and the pancakes turned out perfect again, so thick and fluffy, yet light, my son said that i should always make this recipe! Thank you for this <3
Hi, can the all-purpose flour be substituted with plain flour?
I’m not sure what you mean by plain flour? I would assume that plain flour would be the same as all purpose. You do mean self rising?
The packaging is labelled Plain Flour, described as unbleached wheat flour. I believe it’s the same as all-purpose flour. No, I don’t mean self- raising flour.
Hmm, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. It seems like it might be all purpose, so you could give it a try.