18 Timeless Pancake Recipes (2024)

There's nothing quite as enticing as a hot stack of buttery pancakes to lure a person out of bleary-eyed slumber and to the breakfast table. Whether you prefer your pancakes whisper-thin, such as Swedish Pancakes with Lingonberry Compote, or tall and pillowy, like Japanese Soufflé Pancakes, this collection of our favorite flapjacks has just the recipe to satisfy. Fire up your griddle and keep your maple syrup at the ready.

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Lemon-Ricotta Pancakes with Caramelized Apples

For the ultimate pancakes, use fresh ricotta cheese and finely grated lemon zest. A quick sauté of apples with butter, sugar, and cinnamon makes for a topping that's special and seasonal.

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Whole-Wheat Pancakes with Roasted Berries

F&W culinary director at large Justin Chapple uses a resealable plastic bag to mix his pancake batter and pipe out perfect pancakes — resulting in one less bowl to wash.

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Light and Fluffy Baked Apple Pancake

Golden Delicious apples hold their shape after they're caramelized with sugar and maple syrup, making them a perfect choice for this clever, giant one-pan pancake.

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Blueberry-Banana Pancakes

Television chef Tyler Florence made these pancakes at home one weekend morning with his son Hayden. They're a slight variation on a recipe from his book Tyler Florence Family Meal.

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The Breslin's Ricotta Pancakes with Orange Syrup

While these pancakes from 2007 F&W Best New Chef April Bloomfield are delicious on their own, they're exquisite with the soft ricotta topping, crunchy sliced almonds, and ingeniously vibrant (and neon-bright) orange syrup.

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Cinnamon Polenta Pancakes

Using polenta in addition to white flour in these pancakes makes them especially satisfying; they're excellent served with a berry compote. Feel free to use as much cinnamon in the batter as you please.

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Kaiserschmarrn with Peaches

Kaiserschmarrn is a popular Austrian dessert that can also be eaten for breakfast. It's a light pancake, cut up while it's frying and topped with fruit and powdered sugar.

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Semolina Pancakes

Every morning, cafés in Marrakech serve these crêpes, called begrhir, drizzled with honey or spread with apricot jam. Cooking the crêpes on only one side leaves a lacy network of tiny holes, perfect for catching the sweet toppings; the fine semolina provides a lovely sandy texture.

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Buttermilk Pancakes with Masa Harina

"These are the best pancakes you will ever have," Alex Stupak says. They're light, fluffy, and full of corn flavor from the masa harina. The recipe is from his wife, Lauren Resler, pastry chef at the Empellón restaurants.

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Pumpkin Pancakes

Pumpkin butter adds a sweet and spicy flavor and a boost of moisture to these classic buttermilk pancakes. Cooking them over moderately low heat ensures each pancake cooks through and gets a perfect golden color with a lightly crispy bite. Serve with extra pumpkin butter or melted butter and drizzles of maple syrup.

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Quinoa Pancakes with Ricotta and Lemon

Nutty whole wheat flour, fluffy ricotta, and tender cooked quinoa add flavor and texture to these light pancakes, due to the clever addition of whipped egg whites. Lemon zest, vanilla, and maple syrup add just enough sweetness to balance the slightly bitter quinoa.

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Brown-Butter Pancakes with Sheet Pan Berry Syrup

F&W Cooks contributor Andrea Slonecker channeled her lifelong love of pancakes to take this breakfast basic to a delicious new level. Toasty browned butter infuses the barely sweet batter, which fries up on the griddle into fluffy, lacy-edged flapjacks. To top it off, her super-fast sheet pan fruit syrup comes together in just minutes.

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Sourdough Pancakes with Maple-Molasses Strawberries

At Little Goat Diner in Chicago, 2011 F&W Best New Chef Stephanie Izard makes fluffy pancakes using sourdough starter and tops them with oat streusel and fruit. Here, we use molasses-steeped strawberries, making a breakfast that's balanced with sour, sweet, and bitter flavors.

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Candied Sweet Potato Pancakes

This quick-fix recipe is the ideal breakfast for the morning after Thanksgiving — or any time you have leftover candied sweet potatoes on hand. The addition of mashed sweet potatoes gives the pancakes a beautiful color and keeps them extra moist and tender. Since the potatoes are already sweetened, 2020 F&W Best New Chef Douglass Williams cuts back the amount of brown sugar in the batter and plays up the warming cinnamon and clove.

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Japanese Soufflé Pancakes

The secret to high-rise soufflé pancakes is all about speed and temperature: Cold egg whites whip more slowly than room temperature ones, but they form stronger, more uniform bubbles, and whipping them on medium speed incorporates more air. Finally, piping the batter in one swift pass allows you to create more height from the beginning without overcooking each pancake.

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Blue Corn Piñon Pancakes

Earthy, savory blue corn brings a vibrant hue to these silver dollar pancakes. Drizzled with sweet, tart, smoky blackberry-piloncillo syrup and dolloped with tangy whipped crema, these pancakes are fruity, not too sweet, and filled with flavor.

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Swedish Pancakes with Lingonberry Compote

Chef Andrew Zimmern prefers Sweden's thin, wheaty pannkakor to fluffy American pancakes. Like crêpes, they can tilt savory or sweet.

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Ricotta Hotcakes with Honeycomb Toffee Butter

Honeycomb toffee, honey, and salt add a sweet, crunchy bite to the butter that tops these ricotta hotcakes studded with fresh banana. Using an electric griddle helps maintain an even temperature over the cooking time, resulting in fluffy, moist pancakes.

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