Raspberry Pancakes With Raspberry Syrup

Name: Raspberry Pancakes With Raspberry Syrup
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 60 min
Ingredients: 2 cups all-purpose flour (spooned and leveled); 3 tablespoons white sugar; 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder; 1 ½ teaspoons baking soda; 1 teaspoon salt; 2 large eggs (beaten, at room temperature); 2 ½ cups buttermilk (shaken before measuring); 3 tablespoons melted butter; 2 teaspoons vanilla extract; 1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest; 2 tablespoons butter (not melted); 2 cups raspberries; 2 cups raspberries (fresh or frozen); 1 cup white sugar; 1 cup water; 2 tablespoons cornstarch; Splash of water

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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.

A stack of raspberry pancakes on a small plate against a pink background with pink and white flowers and berries to the side.

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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
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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.

A wooden spoon stirring the dry ingredients in a large stainless steel mixing bowl on a white wooden surface.

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.

A black whisk combining the wet ingredients in a large stainless steel mixing bowl on a white wooden surface.

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.

A wooden spoon folding together the wet ingredients and dry ingredients in a large stainless steel mixing bowl.

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.

Cooking the raspberry pancakes on the first side on an electric griddle with molds to maintain their shape.

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).

The pancakes cooking on the second side of an electric griddle after the first side turned golden brown.

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.

Boiling the water, sugar and raspberries in a small stainless steel saucepan on the stove to make the syrup.

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.

A silver spoon stirring the cornstarch slurry into the raspberry mixture in a small saucepan on the stove.

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.

A potato masher crushing the raspberries in a small stainless steel saucepan after the mixture thickened and boiled.

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. 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

How do you keep raspberry pancakes warm in the oven?

Arrange the pancakes in a single layer on a baking sheet and place in a 200-degree oven. You can keep them warm for about 20-30 minutes. After that, you risk drying them out.

Is a skillet on the stove or an electric griddle best for making pancakes?

While both cooking methods work, I recommend investing in an electric griddle if you enjoy serving pancakes. A griddle has a much larger cooking surface, and I love that it heats to a specific temperature, which I find makes for more consistent results. Plus, those flat edges make flipping pancakes even easier.

Why are my pancakes still gooey inside?

This happens when your heating source is too hot. The outside browns faster than the inside cooks. If that happens, turn down the heat.

A side view of the raspberry pancakes on a white wooden board with pink and white flowers in the background with berries sprinkled around the plate.

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 maybe you’d like a nice maple latte with your pancakes. After all, maple syrup and pancakes were made for each other.

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!

Looking down on a stack of raspberry pancakes on pink cloth with pink and white flowers and berries around the plate.

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