Raspberry Pancakes With Raspberry Syrup

Give your next brunch a fresh and fruity touch with these raspberry pancakes with raspberry syrup! Ultra fluffy buttermilk pancakes are filled with juicy berries in every delicious bite. You’ll want to serve stacks of these fruity pancakes with a generous helping of that wonderful homemade syrup for every spring and summer brunch party.

Jump to:

• Why You’ll Love This Recipe
• Ingredients
• Step-by-Step Instructions
• How to Store, Freeze and Reheat Leftovers
• Recipe FAQs
• Variations and Substitutions
• Expert Tips
• Perfect Pairing
• Get More Brunch and Breakfast Recipes
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

The fluffiest texture: These aren’t scrawny, dense pancakes. Just look at that thick, pillowy edge. After one bite, everyone will swoon over these fluffy raspberry pancakes. 

Simple ingredients: You can find all the ingredients at any basic grocery store, and you probably have almost everything in your pantry or refrigerator.

Endlessly customizable: We’re making raspberry pancakes today, but you use this pancake batter as a base for adding other delicious add-ins. Think blackberry pancakes, banana pancakes, peach pancakes — the list goes on. This is one recipe you’ll turn to over and over again.

Make the batter ahead of serving time: Hosting a brunch? The batter needs to rest before cooking, so you can whip it up right before guests arrive, and then all you have to do is take a few minutes to cook the batter on your griddle.

Alternatively, you could even fully cook the pancakes right before party time and keep them warm in the oven. Either way, you have a convenient make-ahead option.

Related: For more sweet breakfast treats, try these apple cinnamon rolls and monkey bread.

Ingredients

Flour: This recipe has been tested with all-purpose flour. 

Buttermilk: You definitely want to use buttermilk, not regular milk. If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, you can make your own. Simply combine 2 ½ tablespoons lemon juice or distilled white vinegar with 2 ½ cups whole milk. Let the mixture stand for five to 10 minutes, and your buttermilk substitute is ready.

Leavening: We use both baking powder and baking soda.

Raspberries: You can use frozen or fresh raspberries. For the syrup, you don’t need to bother thawing the frozen raspberries, but for the pancakes, I recommend thawing the berries and draining them first. Otherwise, your pancake batter may get too watery.

Butter: I recommend salted butter rather than unsalted butter for this recipe.

Large eggs: Let the eggs sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before mixing into the batter. Room-temperature eggs incorporate more easily than cold eggs.

Step-by-Step Instructions

How to Make Raspberry Pancakes

Step 1: For the pancake batter, we start by stirring together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large mixing bowl (photo 1). These are our dry ingredients.

Step 2: In a separate mixing bowl, we whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, melted butter, vanilla extract and lemon zest (photo 2). As you may have guessed, these are our wet ingredients.

Step 3: Now we pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and fold the two just until combined (photo 3). The batter will be lumpy. 

Before we heat up the skillet or griddle, we let the batter rest for 30 minutes. Don’t skip this step. Resting batter allows the flour to hydrate and leavening to evenly distribute throughout the mixture, making for fluffier, more tender pancakes.

Step 4: After resting, we’re ready to cook those delicious pancakes. Once the skillet or griddle is nice and hot, we pour in our batter and add the raspberries on top like so (photo 4).

Tip: For perfectly round pancakes, I like to use a mold as pictured. I also find a mold keeps the batter from overspreading to make a thicker pancake, but this is optional.

Step 5: As the edge starts to set and little bubbles rise throughout the batter, we use a large spatula to carefully flip the pancakes. We keep cooking the pancakes for a few more minutes until the bottom turns golden brown (photo 5).

How to Make Raspberry Syrup

While you can certainly serve these pancakes with real maple syrup, you’ll love the extra fruity touch of this raspberry sauce. Plus, it’s so easy and adds a lovely pop of color for an impressive presentation.

Step 1: We add raspberries, white sugar and water to a small saucepan on the stove and bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat (photo 6). Every so often, we stir the mixture to ensure the sugar dissolves.

Step 2: While the mixture heats, we stir together some cornstarch and water in a small cup and add it to the raspberries once the syrup boils (photo 7). We let the mixture boil for another minute and then turn off the heat.

Step 3: From here, we use a potato masher or two forks to mash the berries (photo 8). If you prefer a smooth syrup, you’re welcome to strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve, but I love those fresh fruit chunks, so I left it as is.

And that’s it! Our fresh raspberry pancakes are ready to drizzle with raspberry syrup.

You might also like to add a few fresh berries on top, and for even more raspberry breakfast treats, you can also serve these pancakes with these delightful raspberry muffins. Let brunch commence.

How to Store, Freeze and Reheat Leftovers

Have leftover pancakes? You can move them to an airtight container and store them in the refrigerator. They should last for two to three days.

If you’d like to store the leftovers even longer, freezing is an option. To freeze the pancakes, allow them to cool completely, cover them individually in plastic wrap and place them in a freezer bag. You can freeze them for up to two months.

When you’re ready to eat, you don’t have to worry about thawing them. You can reheat them frozen. Here’s how you can reheat both refrigerated and frozen pancakes.

• Reheat in the oven: Place the pancakes on a baking sheet in a single layer. Bake in a 350-degree oven for five to seven minutes. Frozen pancakes may take closer to 10 minutes.
• Reheat in the microwave: Place up to four pancakes in a single layer on a paper towel-lined plate and set another paper towel on top. Microwave them for 15 seconds per pancake. Microwaves can vary wildly, so I recommend keeping a close eye on the time.

I do not recommend using a toaster to reheat these pancakes. While a toaster works well for your standard buttermilk pancakes without a filling, the toaster can cause the raspberries to melt, which is a safety issue.

Recipe FAQs

Variations and Substitutions

• Give it an extra sweet touch and add chocolate chips or white chocolate chips to the batter with the raspberries. You could even top your stack of pancakes with chocolate syrup.
• Use other types of berries or even a mix of berries.
• Swap the lemon zest for orange zest to give it a different flavor. 
• Make these pancakes heartier by adding some old-fashioned oats to the batter.

Expert Tips

Don’t substitute milk for buttermilk: To make fluffy pancakes, we rely on the buttermilk’s acidity to react with the baking powder. Milk won’t give us the same results.

Make sure your cooking surface is hot before adding the pancake batter: A hot surface ensures the pancakes cook quickly and allows the air bubbles to stabilize and create that fluffy texture. If using a skillet, heat the stove to medium heat. For an electric griddle, follow the manufacturer’s temperature recommendation for the right temperature, which is typically 350-375 degrees F.

Don’t overmix the pancake batter: We just want to fold the batter until it comes together. If we overmix the batter, it won’t fluff up properly.

Use two spatulas when flipping: I find it’s easier to flip if you use one large spatula to slide underneath the pancake and another spatula to hold at the opposite end of the pancake. It gives the other side a bit more stability.

Check the expiration date on your leavening: If your baking soda or baking powder is expired, we won’t get the proper rise from our pancakes.

Perfect Pairing

Of course, these raspberry pancakes call for brunch cocktails. For you mimosa lovers, my strawberry-rhubarb mimosa and pineapple mimosa are perfect on the side, or you could go with another sparkling sipper, like this Rossini cocktail.

Or maybe you’d like a nice maple latte with your pancakes. After all, maple syrup and pancakes were made for each other. This jasmine milk tea is another nice nonalcoholic option — the floral and berry notes together are wonderful.

If you’d like a beer with your brunch, a coffee stout is nice. That roasted malt works nicely with berries, and it’s almost like enjoying an iced coffee on the side. But, you know, with the beer addition. A sour ale is also a tasty call.

More of a wine fan? With its sweet berry notes, a sparkling rosé is perfect with these pancakes. You’ll also love this sparkling rosé French 75 if you’re feeling extra fancy.

For the ultimate brunch party, put these raspberry pancakes on the menu. You’ll love every fluffy bite.

Cheers!

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