I Tried the Instagram Pancake Ice Cube Hack and I Have Some Thoughts

When I think about the best classic breakfast dishes, pancakes are sure to end up somewhere high on my list — and for good reason! Pancakes take just a few simple ingredients, and they’re easy to customize to your personal flavor preferences. Blueberries, chocolate chips, and even mashed bananas make great additions to pancake batter. Not to mention, the multitude of toppings that go great on a stack of warm flapjacks!

We recently stumbled upon this amazing-sounding idea from Nicole Keshishian Modic, aka kalejunkie on Instagram, for preparing make-ahead pancake batter in an ice cube tray. All you have to do is prepare your favorite brand of pancake batter (I used Bisquick when I tried this; Modic used Birch Benders), then pour the batter into an ice cube tray and sprinkle with your preferred toppings. Then, once frozen (I froze mine overnight), pop the cubes of pancake batter into a large greased skillet on medium heat and cover, flipping after a few minutes. Continue cooking until lightly browned on each side.

Unfortunately, as the photo above shows, this hack didn’t work well for me. I actually tried it a couple of times because I really wanted it to work — the idea is ingenious in theory, especially if you love nice silver dollar–style pancakes.

The biggest problem I ran into is that the cube of pancake batter started to slide in the greased skillet, so the pancake became irregularly shaped. Then, even after putting a lid on the skillet, the underside of the pancake started to brown a little too much before the pancake fully spread out into a circle.

• I used a different brand of pancake mix.
• I used margarine as my choice of cooking fat.
• I used a nonstick skillet with slightly curved sides.
• I used a gas stovetop that tends to run very hot.

I’m still intrigued by this method, though, so if you have tried it and had success, let me know in the comments so I can try it again!