birthday cake pancakes

Start celebrating your birthday first thing in the morning by devouring a stack of these Birthday Cake Pancakes. Pancakes created using cake mix and studded with sprinkles are drizzled with Vanilla Sugar Glaze and topped with even more sprinkles to create a super special start to your day.

These pancakes are something special. They are deemed Birthday Cake Pancakes as the only time they are served in our house are for your birthday breakfast. We started this tradition three years ago when Camryn turned three and have continued since. That means that between March 7th and May 31st, I make these pancakes four times. That’s a whole lot of pancakes!

First, the pancakes. Deemed Birthday Cake Pancakes because they actually contain boxed cake mix in the batter. They also are studded with sprinkles. Lots and lots and LOTS of sprinkles. Like an entire bottle of sprinkles when I triple the batch. And trust me, you’ll want to at least double this recipe as having a stash of these pancakes in your freezer to enjoy on a whim is indeed something worth celebrating!

Next up? The Vanilla Sugar Glaze. Boring ‘ol maple syrup just won’t do when you’re celebrating a birthday! Instead, this glaze is pretty much a pourable frosting. How can you go wrong?

Last but not least, MORE sprinkles! I mean, why not more sprinkles? We’re celebrating a birthday, anything’s fair game at this point.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Yield: 10 pancakes

Ingredients

1-1/2 cups flour

2/3 cup yellow cake mix

1 tablespoon sugar

3/4 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 vanilla bean

1-2 cups milk

sprinkles

1 cup powdered sugar

3 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 vanilla bean

sprinkles

Instructions

Combine flour, cake mix, baking powder, sugar and salt in medium bowl. Add milk, egg and vanilla and stir until smooth. your batter should resemble typical pancake batter. Begin with 1 cup of milk and add additional milk as needed to reach desired consistency. Scrape inside of vanilla bean into batter and stir to combine. Fold desired amount of sprinkles into batter.

Pour batter onto griddle, using approximately 1/3 cup batter for each pancake. Once bubbles form on top of pancake, flip and cook until browned. Serve with vanilla sugar glaze and additional sprinkles.

Stir together sugar, milk vanilla and vanilla until glaze forms. Scrape inside of vanilla bean into glaze and stir to combine.

Notes

Adapted from How Sweet It Is.

Birthday Cake Pancakes to start the day and the actual birthday cake itself after dinner. The perfect way to bookend a celebration, wouldn’t you agree?

This recipe first appeared on Melanie Makes last year. I’ve rephotographed it and renamed it to reflect what we call these pancakes in our home.