Cake Batter Pancakes.

January 25, 2011 · 538 comments

I’m fairly convinced that the world would be a better place if more sprinkles were involved.

I know. I just made pancakes. It seems I have an unnatural obsession with cake batter. Well I do.


But hear me out.

When I develop recipes, I try to make all of them for a purpose. We really hate to waste food in this house. Crab cakes for dinner, cake for a birthday party, quinoa as a side dish… it all works out. I get to share it with you and we get to eat it.


Then sometimes, I get ideas in my head. Ideas that get me so worked up that I must attempt the recipe and give it a shot as soon as possible, even if it isn’t something we will eat every day. Otherwise, I cannot stop thinking about it. These are the things that keep me up at night.

Case in point: it isn’t anyone’s birthday. It’s not even really close to anyone’s birthday.

But I don’t need an excuse to eat cake and sprinkles. I believe it should be a daily occurrence.

And because pancakes always need some sort of topping, I went with a sprinkled glaze.

Because nothing goes better with cake than more sugar!

These are just plain fun.

Sure, they would be best for a special occasion like a birthday, but they also work on a random Saturday in January when it’s -2 degrees outside and all you want to see is some sunshine.


And you don’t feel like getting on the treadmill, so you decided to eat cake instead.

That wasn’t me. I swear.

And yes, this means you will have an open box of cake mix, just like you did with the cake batter bark. This is okay. You will manage. Sure, you may find yourself mixing cake mix with odd ingredients, but so what? Mother Lovett always had an open box of cake mix in her pantry. Given hers were usually about 4 years old… but still.


Just do it.



Cake Batter Pancakes

makes about 12 pancakes

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2/3 cup yellow cake mix

1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1-2 cups milk (I used vanilla almond milk)

assorted sprinkles

Combine flour, cake mix, baking powder, sugar and salt in a bowl and mix. Add 1 cup of milk, egg and vanilla extract and stir until smooth. You want the batter to look like regular pancake batter; not too thin, not too thick. This will vary greatly on the brand of cake mix you use. Start with 1 cup of milk and add more if needed. I suggest a small taste test as well to see if the pancakes are flavored enough.

Preheat a skillet on medium heat (I use an electric grilled and turn it to 250 degrees). Fold desired amount of sprinkles into batter. Pour batter in 1/4 cup measurements onto skillet and let cook until bubbles form on top, about 2-3 minutes. Flip and cook for 1 minute more. Serve with vanilla glaze.


Glaze

1 cup powdered sugar

1/2 tablespoon milk

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

assorted sprinkles

Mix milk, extract and powdered sugar until glaze forms. You may need to add a little more sugar or water/milk to reach desired consistency. Mix into glaze and drizzle on pancakes.


Maybe the secret to choking down broccoli is throwing sprinkles on top?

Wishful thinking…

{ 414 comments… read them below or add one }

Nikki November 24, 2011 at 12:22 pm

Thanks so much! Glad my mind isn’t the only one that thinks like this. I was washing out a coffee creamer container and thought “You know it would be fun to put a pan cake mix in here and give it
to the niece and nephew for Christmas! Oh and even better if it could have sprinkles like a cake mix! I wonder how you would make pan cakes w/ cake mix? Better go look this up.” Thanks for sharing your talent.

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Talia December 16, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Tori December 23, 2011 at 3:08 pm

Thanks for the recipe! I made Red Velvet Christmas Pancakes with Sprinkles!

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Ashley December 27, 2011 at 12:45 am

So much fun. I would have loved these on my birthday as a kid!

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Eva December 27, 2011 at 4:13 pm

The cookie part didn’t work out so well for me, but the treats were FANTASTIC!

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Tracy Z January 1, 2012 at 2:33 pm

my son’s birthday is today (new years day) and we made these pancakes for breakfast! this maybe a new tradition for our family! YUMMY!

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Lucinda January 5, 2012 at 5:02 pm

thank you for this recipe! just in time for our January birthday…my little guy turns 6 tomorrow :) this will make his morning.

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Elizabeth January 7, 2012 at 5:09 pm

These look amazing! I used your recipe to make Chocolate Chip Cake Batter Pancakes. Here is my blog post on it. I really appreciate all your wonderful recipes. You have a great blog! Thanks a lot! :)
http://windowsandbananas.blogspot.com/2012/01/chocolate-cake-batter-pancakes.html

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meredith January 10, 2012 at 3:40 pm

yummy – can’t wait to make these – I agree sprinkles make everything better. I tend to add it to yogurt for the kids. I posted about breakfast food and added your link today!
http://www.thatsmykindofparty.com/2012/01/tuesday-traditions_10.html

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Dani January 11, 2012 at 9:37 pm

This is fabulous! I’ve had this saved for over a year, but got a serious craving for some cake goodness tonight, so I made these wonderful pancakes. I was actually going to make your one bowl cupcakes for two, which I’ve made before, but then I came across this & thought it would be more fun – plus, I hadn’t tried it yet! I live along so even these are too much for me, but I’m going to try freezing them with wax paper in between each pancake & hopefully they’ll be just as great when I reheat them later!

I haven’t yet, but I’m sure I’ll blog about the experience here: http://theyarntotell.wordpress.com/ sometime tonight with a link to your page. Thanks for the fun fun recipes!

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Zoe January 12, 2012 at 6:07 pm

How many calories? lol

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Meg January 18, 2012 at 7:00 pm

If you make them without the glaze but follow the rest of the instructions and yield 12 pancakes, it’s 105 calories a pancake. Of course, with the glaze, this will be higher.

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Ingo January 14, 2012 at 2:19 pm

Just made these. They’re good. Doubled the recipe (7 kids). Eyeballed the batter consistency while adding small amounts of additional milk . But I used 4 tbsp melted margarine as I thought it might taste too dry. Tastewise, there was DEFINITELY a box cake mix /scratch pancake mix battle going on, and I keep hoping the SPM would win for some reason. Went with syrup as I was too chicken to do glaze for breakfast. Will probably try this again just to see if it all comes together with the glaze. Good recipe! The thought just passed about trying it with muffin mix or even brownie mix.

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JB January 14, 2012 at 10:23 pm

Sprinkles may look nice, but they are actually made from bugs. Most people don’t realize this, but it’s true! Confectioner’s glaze, which is what they are made of, is actually bugs! So you are putting bugs all over your food. Ewe.

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anickH February 6, 2012 at 7:14 am

no theyre not made from bugs. i justs looked this up. total myth.they’re made of sugar, cornstarch, vegetable oil, and food coloring!! http://www.chacha.com/question/are-sprinkles-made-out-of-some-kind-of-bug

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brittney May 1, 2012 at 12:11 am

red food coloring comes from a crushed up bug. look it up.

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karen May 4, 2012 at 11:36 am

if you knew how many products you use that come from bugs, algae, etc…you’d never buy anything again! if you can’t stand the thought, just pick out the red ones.

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Mimi May 5, 2012 at 3:54 pm

Your comment is ridiculous. The people who look at this recipe obviously love sprinkles, so go on a sprinkle hating website.

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Marisa January 14, 2012 at 11:18 pm

I didn’t have any sprinkles, but I did find a box of Funfetti cake mix in the pantry, so I used that! I wanted to make these right away and not wait for a trip to the store to buy sprinkles.

They were OH so good! DH ate them with regular syrup, and I went with the glaze!

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shawna January 16, 2012 at 2:04 pm

My family and myself loved the cinfitti pancakes! One morning I woke up promising to make pancakes but soon realized I didn’t have pancake mix. All I had to do was Google and there u were! Thank u know I can’t wait to try ur red velvet thumbprint cookies

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Angela January 20, 2012 at 1:54 pm

These look so yummy! But I def want to take the shortcut way since Im not really the “cooking” type…. buuuut do you think this would work with a pancake mix? Maybe combine the cake mix in with the pancake mix? Just a thought… I really hope so, so that me and my hubby can have some for breakfast this weekend!

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Stacey January 27, 2012 at 8:09 pm

I saw your pic for the pancakes on Pinterest and looked up the recipe. I’m so excited about trying this out for my son and daughter’s double birthday party tomorrow! I’m planning to use the “funfetti” cake mix so the sprinkles will be already in there. I’m also going to make them ahead of time tonight and just warm them up tomorrow for the party…reduce the pre-party stress :-) . Thanks for the fun recipe!

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Erin @ Making Memories February 5, 2012 at 12:35 pm

We just made these and my kids LOVE them! Thanks!

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jenna February 8, 2012 at 1:25 pm

can you make the batter and glaze the night before?

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Norah February 12, 2012 at 1:47 pm

Just made this with lemon mix in an adventurous moment. Holy cow. It’s a beautiful thing. Thank you!

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Kirsten February 24, 2012 at 4:36 pm

Do you think you could make this the night before (the “pancake part”) and add the glaze in the morning since it is mainly made from a cake mix? I am hosting a pancake and pajama birthday party for my twin girls and I would love to have their “birthday cake” look like a stack of pancakes but don’t want to hassel with making it the morning of their party.

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Jessica February 24, 2012 at 4:41 pm

I really don’t think so – the thing is, it isn’t mainly made from a cake mix. There is only a some cake mix added to the flour. If you make them the night before, they will just taste like day-old, reheated pancakes in the morning. Not horrible, but not as good as fresh pancakes, you know? If you don’t mind them just being reheated, then yes you can definitely do that and make the glaze in the morning!

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Carrie March 6, 2012 at 4:31 pm

We love all things cake batter too… but wanted to share with you our favorite pancake (of this week anyway…) marshmallow pancakes! Check them out here: http://thedealgirls.com/2012/02/national-pancake-day-ooey-gooey-pancakes/

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Kayla March 9, 2012 at 5:25 pm

i just tried these with brownie mix…didn’t work! :( the recipe calls for two eggs, but in the instructions you say “egg” so I was a little confused, but I did two.

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Kayla March 9, 2012 at 5:35 pm

also, it seems weird that this recipe would work at all seeing as there is no butter or oil. The brownie mix ones had no flavor so i whisked in a bunch of peanut butter and more sugar and that helped a little.

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Lorrie March 17, 2012 at 6:15 pm

I made them love them w/ white cake mix ,crushed up a little captain crunch berries just a little twist thought i would share.worked well.

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Ashley March 19, 2012 at 11:36 pm

Thank you for this awesome idea. My lil girl’s bday is next week and we are low on food and I was almost at a loss as to what I should so in replacement for a bday cake. THIS I LOVE!!!! She will go crazy for it.

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Sarah E. March 28, 2012 at 11:24 am

I really love these pancakes – and cake batter! Thank you for sharing :)

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Allie April 4, 2012 at 12:44 pm

Thank you so much for posting this recipe! I have been trying to think of something fun to make my daughter on her 5th birthday this sunday and figured I’d do pancakes for dinner since it’s one of her favorite things to eat and well, pancakes for dinner are just plain fun. I can only imagine how excited she’ll be to have birthday cake pancakes!!! Such a great idea!

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Robin April 11, 2012 at 7:07 pm

I made these today for my daughter’s 5th birthday they were SO GOOD!!! I didn’t have everything for the glaze, but I did have left over homemade chocolate cream cheese/butter cream frosting… OMG!!!! The pancakes are delicious plain though. Note to self… wait until the pancakes are cooled down before you put candles in.. my candles melted inside the pancakes .. ooops!

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Courtney April 15, 2012 at 1:26 pm

I wish I would have found this sooner for my daughters first birthday breakfast! Next year for sure! Cant wait to share them on http://www.domesticobsession.blogspot.com !

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Teresa shere April 24, 2012 at 4:56 pm

Extra white or yellow cakemix can be sprinkled on sliced can peaches (including juice) placed in baking dish with butter drizzled over for a great dessert. Learned this one at a small town cafe I worked at. Have to experiment with size of can and how much mix though–because I was making the industial size cans of peaches into this. If I find the recipe (If I ever wrote it down) I will get back on here and let you all know!!! Best with dollop of canilla ice cream on while warm!!!!

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Dani April 30, 2012 at 4:46 pm

I tried making these today for practice and they turned out great. I made a little modification to the recipe and used a cake batter that came without sugar so I had to add sugar. I added about a 1/2 cup and that worked great for my recipe. My glaze didn’t come out so great though… I’ll keep trying. Thank you so much for this recipe, can’t wait to make it for my boyfriend. And to ADD SPRINKLES!! YAYA!!!

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Hollie May 7, 2012 at 1:20 pm

Thank you for this recipe. I have a special little girl’s birthday this Sat and just told my husband that it was going to have to start with a bang, this fits. As to the broccoli and sprinkles, I’ve done it. I couldn’t get my little one to try it, so I added some sprinkles shaped like butterflies and flowers. It worked so well that now she asks for it almost nightly and it doesn’t matter if the sprinkles are there anymore. Gotta love the sprinkles!

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Brittany May 15, 2012 at 4:31 pm

what brand of cake mix do you use? I made the cake mix rice crispies but they didn’t turn out very well.

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