How to Make Pancake Mix
By Mia Hartwell
Boxed pancake mix is one of the great quiet swindles of the supermarket. Turn the packet over and the ingredients are flour, a raising agent, sugar, and salt, all things already sitting in your cupboard, sold back to you at several times the price with a picture of a stack on the front. Making your own takes about five minutes.
What you actually gain is not just the saving, though that is real. It is that a jar of homemade mix removes every excuse on a weekday morning. Scoop, add milk and an egg, and breakfast is happening in ten minutes flat. It also means you control the sugar and salt, and you can make it whole wheat, gluten free, or buttermilk without hunting for a special box.
This guide gives you the master ratio, a chart for scaling it to however many people you are feeding, exactly how long it keeps and why, and the handful of small mistakes that turn a good mix into flat, tough pancakes.
The Master Ratio
Everything in this guide comes from one simple proportion. For every 1 cup of flour, you want 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Remember that and you never need a recipe again.
Scaled up to a practical batch, that gives you:
- 4 cups (about 500g) all purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons baking powder
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons fine salt
That makes roughly four and a half cups of mix, which is about four batches of pancakes, or enough to feed two people breakfast four times over. Double it if you have the jar space, since the effort is identical.
How to Make the Mix
Measure the flour properly
This matters more than any other step. Do not drag the measuring cup through the flour bag, because that packs it and a packed cup can hold up to 20 percent more flour than it should. Spoon the flour lightly into the cup and level it off with the back of a knife, or better still weigh it: 4 cups is about 500 grams.
Combine everything dry
Tip the flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt into a large bowl. Use fine salt rather than coarse, since large crystals will not distribute evenly through a dry mix and you will get the occasional startlingly salty bite.
Whisk it far longer than feels necessary
Whisk for a full minute or two until the mix is completely uniform. Three tablespoons of baking powder has to be spread evenly through four cups of flour, and a quick stir will not do it. Uneven leavening means some pancakes rise beautifully and others come out flat, from the same jar, which is maddening to diagnose later.
Jar it and label it
Transfer to an airtight jar or container and keep it somewhere cool and dark. Then label it, with the date and the wet ingredients needed per cup. It sounds fussy, but a mystery jar of white powder in six weeks defeats the entire purpose. Write: 1 cup mix, 3/4 cup milk, 1 egg, 2 tbsp melted butter.
How Much to Use Per Batch
Whisk the wet ingredients together in a jug first, then pour them into the measured dry mix.
| Dry Mix | Milk | Eggs | Melted Butter | Makes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 cup | 3/4 cup | 1 | 2 tbsp | 6 to 8 pancakes |
| 1 1/2 cups | 1 cup + 2 tbsp | 1 | 3 tbsp | 9 to 12 pancakes |
| 2 cups | 1 1/2 cups | 2 | 1/4 cup | 12 to 16 pancakes |
| 3 cups | 2 1/4 cups | 3 | 6 tbsp | 18 to 24 pancakes |
Cooking the Pancakes
Stir the wet into the dry just until the dry streaks disappear, about ten to fifteen seconds, and then stop. The batter should still look lumpy. Those lumps will hydrate and disappear on their own, whereas stirring them out develops gluten and gives you tough, rubbery pancakes. This is the single most important thing that happens after the mix leaves the jar.
Let the batter rest for five minutes while the pan heats. Cook on a medium griddle around 375F, where a drop of water skitters rather than vanishing instantly. Pour, wait until bubbles break across the surface and the edges look set, then flip once and leave it alone. Do not press it with the spatula, however satisfying that is, because you are only flattening the structure the baking powder just built.
Variations
- Buttermilk mix. Add 1 cup of buttermilk powder to the batch and use water instead of milk. Or keep the mix plain and simply use fresh buttermilk as your liquid, which gives a noticeably lighter, tangier pancake.
- Whole wheat. Swap half the all purpose flour for whole wheat. Going fully whole wheat makes them dense, so half is the sweet spot.
- Gluten free. Use a measure for measure gluten free blend containing xanthan gum, and rest the batter ten minutes so the flours hydrate.
- Just-add-water. Add 1 cup of nonfat milk powder to the batch, then use only water when cooking. Keep this version no longer than three months.
- Cinnamon or vanilla. Whisk 2 teaspoons of cinnamon into the dry mix, or add vanilla to the wet ingredients when you cook.
How Long It Keeps
A plain flour based mix keeps for about six months in an airtight container somewhere cool and dark. Nothing in it spoils in a dangerous sense, and the real clock is the baking powder, which gradually loses its lifting power. Pancakes made from a year old jar are perfectly safe and disappointingly flat.
If you added powdered milk, cut that to about three months, because the small amount of fat in milk powder can turn rancid and give the mix a stale, cardboardy edge. Either version can go in the freezer to extend its life considerably, and there is no need to thaw it before use.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Pancake mix is hard to get badly wrong, but these are the reasons a homemade jar produces flat, tough, or inconsistent results.
Scooping flour straight from the bag
Dragging a measuring cup through a flour bag compacts it, and a packed cup can hold up to 20 percent more flour than a properly measured one. Across four cups that is nearly an extra cup of flour hiding in your mix, which is why some homemade mixes produce dry, heavy, oddly bready pancakes no matter how carefully everything else is done.
Do this instead: Spoon the flour lightly into the cup and level the top with a knife, or weigh it. Four cups of all purpose flour is about 500 grams.
Not whisking the dry mix enough
Three tablespoons of baking powder has to be spread evenly through four cups of flour, and a quick stir does not achieve that. Pockets of concentrated leavening give you pancakes with a soapy metallic taste, while the flour-heavy scoops produce flat ones. The same jar then behaves differently from one breakfast to the next, which is baffling until you know why.
Do this instead: Whisk for a full minute or two, longer than feels necessary, until the mix looks completely uniform in colour and texture. Sifting works too.
Using old baking powder
Baking powder loses potency from the moment the tin is opened, and most of it is spent within six months to a year. It never looks or smells any different, so a jar of mix made with a two year old tin will simply produce sad flat discs, and you will blame the recipe rather than the tin.
Do this instead: Test it by dropping half a teaspoon into hot water. It should fizz vigorously. If it only trickles, replace it before making the mix.
Overmixing the batter
Stirring flour and liquid together develops gluten, and gluten is exactly what you want in bread and exactly what you do not want in pancakes. A batter beaten until smooth produces pancakes that are rubbery, chewy, and tough, and no amount of butter or syrup disguises it. The lumps you are trying to eliminate are harmless.
Do this instead: Stir just until the dry streaks disappear, about ten to fifteen seconds, and stop while it still looks lumpy. Then let it rest five minutes.
Adding powdered milk then storing it for months
Powdered milk turns a mix into a convenient just-add-water version, but it contains a little fat, and fat goes rancid. A mix that would have kept six months as plain flour will start tasting stale and faintly cardboardy after around three, and rancidity is subtle enough that people often notice the pancakes are worse without identifying why.
Do this instead: Add powdered milk only if you will use the mix within about three months, or keep it in the freezer. Otherwise leave it out and use fresh milk.
Not labelling the jar
This sounds trivial and it is the one people regret most. Six weeks later you have an unmarked jar of white powder and no idea whether it needs one egg or two, three quarters of a cup of milk or a full cup, or when you made it. The mix is fine, but the guesswork undoes the convenience that was the entire point.
Do this instead: Write the date and the per-cup instructions straight onto the lid or a taped label: 1 cup mix, 3/4 cup milk, 1 egg, 2 tbsp melted butter.
Cooking on a griddle that is too hot
High heat seems like it should be faster, but pancakes need time for the centre to set and the leavening to do its work. Too hot and the outside darkens in under a minute while the inside stays raw and gluey, and the first pancake being wrong is usually a temperature problem rather than the traditional sacrifice.
Do this instead: Aim for a medium griddle around 375F. A drop of water should skitter across the surface rather than vanishing instantly.
Pressing the pancakes with a spatula
The urge to flatten a pancake after flipping it is almost universal and it undoes everything the baking powder just achieved. Those bubbles are the structure, and pressing collapses them permanently, giving you a dense, flat pancake from a batter that was working perfectly well.
Do this instead: Flip once, when bubbles break across the surface and the edges look set, then leave it completely alone until it is done.
The short version
Per cup of flour: 2 teaspoons baking powder, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt. A good batch is 4 cups flour, 3 tablespoons baking powder, 1/4 cup sugar, 2 teaspoons salt. Spoon and level the flour, whisk for two full minutes, and store it airtight and labelled for up to six months. To cook, use 1 cup mix with 3/4 cup milk, 1 egg, and 2 tablespoons melted butter, and stir only until the dry streaks vanish.
Make a double batch the first time. The work is the same for two jars as for one, and having a second one sitting there is what turns pancakes from a weekend project into something you can do on a Tuesday.
Two things pair unusually well with this. If you make your own butter, the real buttermilk you get as a by-product is exactly the liquid that makes the lightest, tangiest pancakes, and you have fresh butter to melt over the top of them. And pancakes make a genuinely good dinner, which is the whole idea behind our breakfast for dinner recipes, where something like a loaded breakfast skillet alongside a stack covers everyone at the table.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the ratio for homemade pancake mix?+
For every 1 cup of all purpose flour, use 2 teaspoons of baking powder, 1 tablespoon of sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. A convenient batch is 4 cups flour, 3 tablespoons baking powder, 1/4 cup sugar, and 2 teaspoons salt, which makes about 4 and a half cups of mix and roughly four batches of pancakes.
How much pancake mix do I use per batch?+
Use 1 cup of dry mix with 3/4 cup of milk, 1 egg, and 2 tablespoons of melted butter or oil. That makes about six to eight pancakes, enough for two people. Whisk the wet ingredients together first, then pour them into the dry mix and stir just until combined, leaving the lumps alone.
How long does homemade pancake mix last?+
A plain flour based mix keeps for about six months in an airtight container somewhere cool and dark. The limiting factor is the baking powder, which slowly loses its lifting power rather than becoming unsafe. If you add powdered milk to make a just-add-water mix, cut that to about three months, since the small amount of fat in milk powder can turn rancid.
Can you make pancake mix without baking powder?+
You can substitute it, but you cannot leave it out, since it is what makes pancakes rise. For each 2 teaspoons of baking powder, use 1/2 teaspoon of baking soda plus 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar. Baking soda on its own only works if your liquid is acidic, such as buttermilk, so it is not a straight swap in a dry mix you will use with regular milk.
Why are my pancakes flat and tough?+
Almost always overmixing, or old baking powder. Stirring the batter until it is smooth develops gluten, which makes pancakes chewy and dense instead of tender, so stop while it still looks lumpy. If the batter is lumpy and the pancakes are still flat, test your baking powder by dropping half a teaspoon into hot water. It should fizz energetically.
Can you make pancake mix gluten free?+
Yes. Substitute a measure for measure gluten free flour blend in place of the all purpose flour, keeping everything else the same. Look for a blend containing xanthan gum, otherwise the pancakes tend to be fragile. Gluten free batter benefits from resting for about ten minutes before cooking so the flours can hydrate properly.