Recipe · Breakfast · Shelf-stable
Homemade Pancake & Waffle Mix in a Jar
Six pantry staples, one quart jar, three batches of pancakes. A recipe from the Dry Mix Pantry Cookbook.
A pancake is a browning problem. It cooks in about four minutes on a dry griddle, and the freckled gold surface comes from sugar and milk solids meeting hot metal. That is why this jar carries more sugar and more milk powder than an all-purpose baking mix can afford, and a little more baking powder for a taller rise.
A quarter teaspoon of baking soda sits in the jar doing nothing until you stir a spoonful of vinegar into the water. Then it gives you the tang a buttermilk pancake is known for.
Classic Pancake & Waffle Mix
Yield1 quart jar
Makes3 × 10–12 pancakes
Mixing6 min
Shelf life12 months
In the jar
| Ingredient | Volume | Weight |
|---|
| All-purpose flour | 2¾ cups | 11.6 oz (330 g) |
| Granulated sugar | ¼ cup | 1.8 oz (50 g) |
| Nonfat dry milk powder (instant) | ½ cup | 1.2 oz (34 g) |
| Baking powder | 2 Tbsp | 0.8 oz (24 g) |
| Fine salt | 1½ tsp | 0.3 oz (9 g) |
| Baking soda | ¼ tsp | 0.1 oz (1.5 g) |
| Total | ~3¾ cups | 15.8 oz (~449 g) |
You'll also need (fresh, per batch)
- 1 egg
- 1 cup water (add 1 teaspoon of white vinegar for the buttermilk tang)
- 3 Tbsp melted butter
Make the mix
- Whisk the flour and baking powder together alone, 30 seconds.
- Press the baking soda through a fine strainer into the bowl; add the sugar and salt.
- Add the milk powder last, bowl tilted away from you; whisk 1 minute.
- Funnel into a quart jar and seal.
Cook
Whisk 1¼ cups of mix (150 g) with the egg, water and melted butter until the largest lumps are gone. Let the batter stand 5 minutes, then cook scant ¼-cup rounds on a 375°F griddle until the bubbles stay open, flip once and finish. Makes 10–12 pancakes of 4 inches.
Jar label
Classic Pancake & Waffle Mix · made [date] · best quality by [date + 12 months] · 1¼ cups mix + 1 egg + 1 cup water + 3 Tbsp melted butter = 10–12 pancakes, griddle 375°F
What it costs, honestly
$0.97This jar, 15.8 oz of mix
$4.2932 oz box of pancake mix
~54%Less per ounce, mix alone
Prices are at neighborhood-supermarket level.
The comparison is generous to the jar. A just-add-water boxed mix needs nothing else, while this jar wants an egg and butter too, so once those are counted the gap narrows a lot. If you shop at a discount store, your prices will be lower on both sides and your saving smaller.
What's only in the book
This page is the recipe card. The book carries the rest of the section: how to test your baking powder before you commit a Sunday to an old jar, the waffle version with its own butter amount, the freezer stack for a toaster breakfast, and what a tough, pale or flat pancake is telling you. It also puts every jar of the other 23 mixes on the same footing: weights, shelf life and an honest cost line.
Dry Mix Pantry Cookbook
The 12-Ingredient Pantry System: 24 Mixes That Become 75 Meals, Sides, Sauces and Sweets.
