About This Mini Pancake Cereal Recipe
Come try this TikTok famous, Covid Era recipe for Mini Pancake Cereal! Pancake cereal is made by cooking a lot of mini pancakes really small (typically, the size of coins). You then pile all these mini pancakes into a small bowl so that they look like cereal!
The pancakes’ smaller size makes them more crispy since there is less surface area for them to fluff up like regular pancakes. Most TikTok tutorials instruct you to eat the pancakes with a spoon. A spoonful of pancake cereal is pretty crispy—it’s almost similar to the crunchiness of a spoonful of real cereal!
For more viral recipes, check out Hummingbird High‘s Recipe Archive! Internet famous recipes include this Creamy & Light Dalgona Coffee Recipe, this Dubai Chocolate Pistachio Tart (Complete With A Crunchy Kataifi Filling!), and this Small Batch Blueberry Muffin Recipe.
Ingredients and Substitutions
Now that I’ve convinced you to make pancake cereal, here is your shopping list for the recipe:
Shopping List for Mini Pancake Cereal Recipe
- whole milk
- large eggs
- canola oil
- unsalted butter
- all-purpose flour
- granulated sugar
- baking powder
- kosher salt
- maple syrup (optional, for serving)
And let’s talk about some of its key ingredients:
Ingredient Sources and Substitutions
- Whole Milk. Use whole milk for the most flavorful pancakes. Skim, low-fat, and non-fat milks will lead to less flavorful baked goods. You can also use plant-based alternatives (e.g. almond, coconut, soy, or oat milk). Just be warned that the pancakes might taste like the milk alternative you end up using.
- Canola Oil. You can use whatever oil you have on hand instead. Vegetable oil, grapeseed oil, and peanut oil work best to replace the canola oil because they are also neutral in flavors. However, you can also use flavored oils like coconut and olive in this recipe. Just note that, similar to using flavored milk above, your pancakes might have a subtle coconut or olive oil flavor to them, too.
- All-Purpose Flour. You can use a 1-1 gluten free all purpose flour replacer to make the recipe gluten free. I like Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free 1 to 1 Baking Flour or King Arthur Flour Gluten Free All Purpose Flour.
- Kosher Salt. Kosher salt is the best salt for baking recipes. But you can replace the kosher salt in the recipe with table salt. Just use half the amount listed in the recipe when you do!
What You Need To Make The Recipe
This mini pancake cereal recipe requires a handful of specialty tools:
- Piping bag with a small piping tip. It’s best to use a piping bag with a small piping tip to make the mini pancakes. You’ll use the piping bag to pipe small dollops of pancake batter into a frying pan. If you don’t have a piping bag at home, pour the batter into a disposable ziptop bag. Snip off a small corner of the ziptop bag with scissors. Boom! You’ve made your very own piping bag at home!
- Nonstick skillet. I am of the firm opinion that pancakes are best when made in a nonstick skillet. Nonstick skillets make pancake making SO much easier.
- 2 Cooking Turners. Confession: it is a lot harder to flip a mini pancake than it is to flip a regular pancake. There’s just less surface area for the spatula to work with! It’s easier if you use two stiff cooking spatulas. Instead of approaching the pancake from just one side, use both the spatulas to approach the pancake from opposite ends. Lift it up this way, then flip!
- Chopsticks. When cooking the mini pancakes, I found that some of them cooked way faster than others. This uneven cooking is due to a number of factors: when the batter was piped onto the pan, how far (or close!) the pancake is to the hottest part of the pan (typically, its center), and more. Often times, the pancakes that were piped around the edges of the pan needed to cook for longer. To make sure none of my pancakes got burnt, I ended up using chopsticks to lift the pancakes that finished cooking earlier. Any chopsticks will do the job—even the cheap wooden ones you get with takeout!
How to Make Pancake Cereal
Here are the basic steps to make this pancake cereal recipe:
- Make the pancake batter. (Work Time: 5 minutes)
First, make the pancake batter. It’s super easy. Whisk together the wet ingredients like milk, eggs, oil, and butter, then the dry ingredients like flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt. Pour the batter into a piping bag. - Prep your pancake making station. (Prep Time: 5 minutes)
You’ll need to preheat the pan at a high temperature to get it as evenly heated as possible. After its preheated, lower the temperature for your pancakes. Don’t cook them at the high temperature! Because the pancakes are so small, it’s easy to burn them. - Cook the pancakes. (Cook Time: 20 minutes)
Use the piping bag to dollop small amount of batter (roughly the size of a coin—a dime or a nickel for you Americans) into the pan. Each dollop makes a small pancake. Cook the pancakes for 1 to 2 minutes, or until set around the edges and lightly golden in the center. Flip, then cook on the other side for another 1 to 2 minutes. - Serve immediately!
Pancake cereal is best when the pancakes are still warm and fresh off the stovetop. However, because you’ll likely be cooking the mini pancakes in multiple batches, you can place the finished pancakes in the oven to keep them warm as you cook the rest of the batter.
Recipe Troubleshooting and FAQ
Can I use pancake mix to make pancake cereal instead?
Yes, you absolutely can! Traditional pancake mix even holds its shape better than pancake batter made from scratch. That means you’ll likely have an easier time piping the pancake cereal!
Can you save pancake batter?
Yes! The pancake batter recipe can be made up to 1 day ahead, and stored in the the fridge until you’re ready to make the pancake cereal.
Alternatively, if you find yourself getting fatigued by making pancake cereal (see baker’s notes), you make a batch or two, then save the batter in the refrigerator to make pancake cereal another day. Simply cover the pancake batter bowl with a tight layer of plastic wrap and refrigerate.
Can you freeze pancake cereal?
Yes! Follow the directions to make the pancake cereal. However, instead of placing in the oven to keep warm, you can simply transfer them to a plate. Once you’ve used up all your batter, transfer the mini pancakes into an airtight container or ziptop bag. Freeze for up to 3 months. The day before you’re planning to serve the mini pancakes, transfer the frozen pancakes to the refrigerator to thaw overnight. Follow the instructions below on how to reheat the pancake cereal.
Best Recipe Tips
Pancake Cereal Piping Tips
- Making the pancake batter the day before and refrigerating it overnight makes your life easier. Why? The chilled batter is easier to pipe, and helps hold its shape better in the skillet.
- Uh oh! You’re having trouble piping the batter because it’s just SO runny. It keeps gushing out of the piping bag, resulting in bigger pancakes. No worries! Instead of holding the piping bag perpendicular to the pan (which is how you typically pipe things), hold it parallel to the pan. Lightly squeeze the top of the bag to allow the batter to fall into a thin, slow stream into the pan. It’s much easier to control the batter this way!
Cooking Tips
- Although many TikTok videos show people making huge amounts of mini pancakes at a time, I actually ended up baking the mini pancakes in batches of about 10 to 15 at a time. Anything more was a little chaotic—it was hard to flip the pancakes one by one in the crowded pan!
However, if you’re looking to safe time, don’t bother flipping the pancakes one by one. Instead, once the majority of the pancakes are set, use a stiff spatula to just flip them all by scraping it around the pan to lift and toss the pancakes all at once. I don’t recommend this method though—although it saves time, you always inevitably end up with some undercooked, soggy pancakes.
Video Tutorial
Use the video player below to watch my Instagram Story tutorial on how to make this mini pancake cereal recipe! The arrows to the left and right of the frame allow you to skip through the different recipe steps. You can also hit the “pause” or “enlarge” buttons on the upper right hand side of the frame to pause or enlarge the frames accordingly.
Alternatively, head to my Instagram profile to watch these Stories on mobile! The circles underneath my bio indicate saved Instagram Story highlights depicting various recipes. Clicking on one of the circles will play the videos you see above. You may need to scroll right to find this mini pancake cereal recipe.
Get the Recipe: Mini Pancake Cereal Recipe
Ingredients
For the Mini Pancake Cereal
- ½ cup (4 ounces or 113 grams) whole milk
- 1 large egg
- 1 ½ teaspoons canola oil, plus more for pan
- 4 Tablespoons (2 ounces or 57 grams) unsalted butter, melted
- ½ cup (2.25 ounces or 64 grams) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
For the Mini Pancake Cereal
- Prep your oven and pans. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 250°F. Set a wire rack on top of a sheet pan and place in the oven.
- Make the pancake batter. In a medium bowl, whisk together the milk, egg, oil, and butter. Sprinkle the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt over the wet ingredients. Use a rubber spatula to mix until just combined; the batter will be thick with some lumps.
- Prep your skillet. Heat a medium, nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Once hot, use a pastry brush to brush a thin film of oil (from about ½ teaspoon) across the pan's surface. Immediately reduce the heat to medium-low.
- Cook the pancakes. Pour the batter into a piping bag fitted with a small tip. Working quickly, pipe small dots of the pancake batter, each about the size of a dime (about ¾ of an inch, or 20mm) or a nickel (slightly larger than ¾ of an inch, or 22mm). Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the edges of the pancakes look dry and set. Use a stiff spatula or chopsticks to flip each pancake individually. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the bottom of each pancake is golden brown.
- Serve and store. Serve immediately, or place the cooked pancakes directly on the wire rack on the sheet pan in the oven to keep them warm and crisp until ready to serve.
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Weeknight Baking:
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Over the past several years of running Hummingbird High, I kept a crucial aspect of my life hidden from my readers: I had a full-time, extremely demanding job in the tech world. In my debut cookbook, Weeknight Baking, I finally reveal the secrets to baking delicious desserts on a tight schedule.
Wow, this is more info than I ever expected to read on pancake cereal, LOL. It looks fun but I think I’ll live vicariously through watching you do it 😉
A better surface area to volume ratio than regular ones
This was so fun! The pancakes turned out wonderful as tiny little discs and were delicious with maple syrup!
I have silicone moods for mini pancakes . How can i apply your recipe in cooking with these molds?
I’m sorry, but I don’t know! I don’t own silicone pancake molds myself so I’ve never tried cooking this recipe in them.
can you but them in the fridge for a day.
The pancake batter, or the cooked pancakes themselves?
I really liked this recip[e