Now that Dave has been in school for 2 months, I’m finally finding my groove again in regards to “surviving” the crazy morning hours with 3 kids all requiring various amounts of help, attention, care, and most importantly FOOD!
As much as I’d love our children to be satisfied with cereal and milk for breakfast, I just can’t get them to eat it. Nora and Simon both like the occasional bowl of dried FrootLoops or Cheerios as a snack, but that’s about it. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t love cereal either.
Instead, the kids request daily hot breakfasts like pancakes, cheesy eggs and toast, or my homemade Belgian waffles — which means we eat a hot breakfast almost every day.
I don’t mind making breakfasts at all… however, it is usually a challenge for me to find the perfect moment to flip pancakes or watch over the eggs while everyone is waking up, getting dressed, going to the bathroom, and getting grouchy because they are hungry.
.
That’s where this fabulously simple recipe for Baked Puff Pancakes comes into play…
Not only are they ridiculously simple to make, they also taste amazing, and (best of all) they are baked in the oven. This means I can pop them in the oven and do other things while they bake — like change diapers, dress children, do hair, and feed the baby. Then, when the timer goes off, we are ready to eat!
If I’m really running stuck, or if James is a bit fussy, I flip the oven light on and let Nora and Simon watch the pancakes puff up as they bake — built-in entertainment and breakfast all in one!
Although these Puff Pancakes have become a breakfast favorite around our house, I’ve also made them for dinner plenty of times — adding some breakfast meat, fried eggs, and smoothies to round out the meal.
If there are any left over for dinner, they are quickly gobbled up the next morning for breakfast!
Recipe for Baked Puff Pancakes
Makes 20-24 Pancakes
INGREDIENTS:
- 1 c. all-purpose flour (whole wheat doesn’t work well)
- 1 c. milk
- 1/4 c. melted butter or oil
- 6 eggs
- a pinch of salt
- fruit, syrup, chocolate chips, powdered sugar, or other toppings (optional)
DIRECTIONS:
- Preheat oven to 400*F
- Grease two regular-size 12-cup muffin tins and set aside
- In a 4 c. measuring cup (or medium size bowl) mix flour, milk, butter, eggs, and salt
- Stir until well combined
- Pour into muffin cups until they are about 1/2 full
- Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes
- Remove from pan, top with optional toppings, eat, and enjoy!
A Few Tips:
To save myself even more time in the mornings, I will often mix up the batter the night before and just put it in the fridge. Then all I need to do is pour the batter into the muffin cups and pop it in the oven.
Sometimes, I’ll only make a half batch (as is shown in the pictures) but the Puff Pancakes really do taste great as leftovers so even though our family isn’t huge, we can easily eat 24 puff pancakes in 2 days 🙂
Also, I’ve found that it definitely works the best to make the batter in a pourable container. Otherwise transferring the batter into the muffin tins can make a bit of a mess (ask me how I figured that one out!)
Finally, depending on how closely your oven racks are located, you’ll want to make sure to remove the rack above where the Puff Pancakes are baking — the really do puff up extremely high!
These baked Puff Pancakes have quickly become one of our favorite fast and easy breakfast foods — even for crazy weekday mornings with 3 little kids!
What are your favorite busy morning breakfasts?
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Cindy says
We made ‘breakfast for dinner’ with this recipe. It’s close to my favorite Dutch pancake which has cooked apples, butter and cinnamon on the bottom. It’s cooked in a skillet, then the batter is placed on top and it is put in the oven. After cooking the dish is flipped upside down. Yum!
Tonight i made your muffin tin recipe exactly as the recipe states. One pan was with paper muffin cups which I sprayed with non-stick spray. The second pan was silicone muffin cups- also sprayed with non-stick spray. It was an interesting accidental science experiment. The muffins in the paper cups rose up wonderfully. The muffins in the silicone cups were flat and were poppped up from the muffin cup- almost as if pressure built up under the batter and it needed to vent. Both tasted great. All were consumed quickly. But I won’t use silicone muffin cups again. Thanks for the receipe.
Andrea says
thanks for sharing Cindy! glad my recipes worked for you (minus the silicone pan issues!)
I’ve never been a fan of silicone pans for baking, but there is apparently a good market for them as they are sold almost everywhere!
JoDi says
I’ve never seen anything like these before, but they look delicious!
Miranda says
I love this idea! Do you think silicone baking cups would work instead of greasing the pan? I’m looking for less clean up. Or would that not get the same result? Thanks for all your inspiration!!
Joless says
Traditionally (we love tradition in the UK!) one needed a heavy metal pan (large or muffin) to hold the heat and get it all nice and smoking hot before you put the batter in so it puffs up immediately, ergo silicon wouldn’t work for that, but I have never tried it so….
Michelle says
I make these but have never thought about doing it in a muffin tin! I will do this soon! Peaches are my favorite topper.
Andrea says
we like peaches too — but strawberries or chocolate + bananas are our favorite!
Ladybug says
Wasn’t able to print this recipe…..any suggestions??
Andrea says
I just checked and the link was broken. It’s working now 🙂
Nikki says
I’m curious…how much your homemade pancake mix for this recipe differs from a pre made/store bought pancake mix? Have you tried pre made/store bought pancake mixes for this recipe? If so how well do they compare to each other?
Andrea says
I’m honestly not sure — it’s probably been 6-8 years since I made pancakes from a box. From what I can remember, “from a box pancakes” are quite light and somewhat dry. These pancakes are very heavy, dense, and moist. There are 6 eggs — which is a lot, so they are filling.
Joless says
That’s a Yorkshire Pud recipe 🙂 Try pre-heating the fat in the pan first to get much better puffiness. Careful as you fill them! In the UK we serve them with roast dinners and gravy. Yum 🙂 We also used to eat them at home with golden syrup poured over if there were (rarely) any left over.
Seconding Toad-in-the-Hole. It’s very tasty. Just stick some pork sausages (not hot-dogs) into a pan and cook for maybe 10 mins, to get some colour on them and then pour over the batter (best in a large pan). Cook ’til puffed and golden.
Sarah says
Ha so funny – this post is flushing out the Brit readers! Thirding the toad-in-the-hole here, and we never have leftovers either. My dad used to have left over Yorkshire pudding for breakfast as a treat before school on a Monday morning, drenched in sugar.
Check out the Delia Smith recipe for a trusted version, always works and is perfect for winter evenings.
I’ll give it a try for breakfast with fruit, thanks for the idea!
Andrea says
interesting — I’ll have to try this. Our kids LOVE sausage!
Susie says
Never thought to bake them in muffin pans! Yummy!
Shannon says
Hi Andrea!
This looks yummy and easy! I noticed that in the picture with the ingredients there is a bag of sugar but I didn’t see any sugar listed in the ingredient list for the recipe. Did the sugar just photobomb your picture or is there supposed to be sugar in the recipe? 😉
Thank you!
Andrea says
Well, I never noticed that! Sorry!
I think I was intending to put powdered sugar in the picture to show that you could dust them with powdered sugar after they are done baking. Woops!
That said, I’m sure a little sugar couldn’t hurt them at all 🙂
Shannon says
Thanks! I just want to make sure that I make them correctly! I’m sure some powdered sugar and maybe a few chocolate chips would be my favorite way to eat them! 🙂
Chris says
Yum. We like those too. We bake the batter all together in a big pan and call them volcano pancakes. (Taste of Home called them that). That is such a cute picture of Nora watching the oven. 🙂
Sherry says
This is almost my recipe for Yorkshire pudding. We sometimes have it when I cook a roast beef. Next time you make a roast try them with a little butter and salt & pepper on top. They are so much better than plain buns. And I will try them for breakfast with fruit on top!
MamaToo says
This reminded me of Yorkshire pudding, too. I’m not British, but I love reading Miss Read books and decided to try some of the dishes she writes about.
Andrea, Nora would probably enjoy Toad-in-in-the-Hole. That’s baking these pancakes with a piece of link sausage in each muffin cup. It’s served with onion sauce, which she might not be crazy about. My small children loved the name and the dish.
Andrea says
I never thought to do that — but I suppose they would be good with savory dishes too! Thanks for the tip!
Jen says
I have never been a “hot breakfast” mom, but I have two hungry teenage boys who dearly love hot breakfast. So, last year, which was our oldest son’s senior year, I decided to do hot breakfast three times a week. I wanted to do something just for him that was special for his last year at home. I found out that hot breakfast is a lot easier than I thought–and my older girls are a little “”put out” that mom didn’t do the same for them! 🙂
Even though our son is off to college now, I’ve continued with hot breakfast three times a week. I will definitely be trying these puff pancakes as I especially love something I can mostly prep the night before. My boys’ favorite breakfast is cinnamon roll waffles. I just buy a can of refrigerated cinnamon rolls, flatten four of them together in the waffle iron, and it makes a sort of cinnamon roll waffle. Their second favorite is Swedish pancakes, which are basically crepes. I serve them with strawberries (in season) or homemade strawberry or peach sauce from the freezer. They are always a hit! Link below:
http://beautyandbedlam.com/swedish-pancakes-tasty-tuesday/
Andrea says
yum, thanks for the recipe! Glad you are enjoying hot breakfasts 3 times a week. Just tell your girls that the baby is always spoiled 🙂
Andrea says
I just clicked through to that recipe and realized that my mom made these ALL the time growing up. We called them “Dutch pancakes” but they were the exact same thing!
Jen T says
With two teenagers, we often have lots of extra kids here on the weekends…love the idea of a pancake bar using these!
Andrea says
oooo… how fun! I think a pancake bar would be a fabulous idea!