Rainbow pancakes are the perfect rainbow breakfast food centerpiece but can also be a great addition to St. Patrick’s Day, unicorn birthday parties, painting parties, and more! Or you can just whip a batch for your kids on the weekend to make it a bit more special!
Colored pancakes are always a hit! Learn how to make blue pancakes, green pancakes, and your favorite color with this easy recipe!
All of our recipes have a recipe card at the bottom of the post so you can skip down to it. But I highly recommend checking out our tips and tricks for making these fun pancakes!
RAINBOW PANCAKES
HOW TO MAKE RAINBOW PANCAKES
To make things easier, I make our rainbow pancakes with boxed pancake mix. You could follow these directions with homemade pancake mix as well. It’s all up to you! The process of coloring pancakes is the same either way!
It’s really all about your food coloring! You can make these pancakes rainbow or any color combination you like!
RELATED RECIPES: Cake Mix Rainbow Cupcakes, Cake Mix Coffee Cake, Cracker Barrel French Toast
IS IT OKAY TO PUT FOOD COLORING IN PANCAKES?
Yes! The food coloring is edible and it shouldn’t affect the taste of your pancakes unless you add some crazy amount. Then you might taste a slight bitter flavor. But you’d have to add a lot!
I highly recommend using gel food coloring because you’ll get more vibrant colors without having to use as much food coloring!
HOW DO YOU MAKE PANCAKES EVEN COLORED?
Separating your pancake batter into small bowls and making sure you mix the food coloring in very well is the way to get even color in your pancakes. If you’re going for a bold color, you’ll be using more food coloring and so you need to make sure you mix it well!
HOW DO I MAKE PANCAKES FLUFFIER?
If you want your pancakes to be as fluffy as possible (which I do when we’re making rainbow pancakes because it looks cooler), there are a few things to keep in mind.
- Avoid overmixing the pancake batter. When you making colored pancake batter, you may need to mix more to get the color evenly distributed. But overmixing the batter can make your pancakes tough. Add the food coloring as early as you can and try to stop mixing when your batter has small lumps.
- Let your batter rest! After you’ve mixed it all together, let the pancake batter sit for at least 20 minutes.
- Once you’re cooking your pancakes, wait until you see small bubbles form in the center of the pancake before you flip it.
- Only flip your pancakes once!
DO YOU COOK PANCAKES ON HIGH OR LOW HEAT?
Starting with a pan that is hot enough is important if you want the edges of your pancake to be crisp on the edges with a soft, fluffy inside. So give your pan time to heat up. Before you start cooking your pancakes, the butter or oil you’re using in the pan should be hot.
You don’t want to cook your pancakes overheat that is too high. That will just lead to burnt pancakes with raw insides. The pan needs to be hot but not too hot, so I recommend you set the heat to a medium setting.
One thing you can do is heat the pan up on medium-high, then lower the heat to medium before you start the first pancake. You can test the heat of your pan by using a small bit of batter and seeing if it sizzles when it hits the pan.
RAINBOW PANCAKES/UNICORN PANCAKES RECIPE
Prep time: 15 minutes
Cook time: 10 minutes per pancake stack
Rainbow Pancakes
Ingredients
- 4 cups Complete boxed pancake mix (DIRECTIONS MAY CHANGE DEPENDING ON THE BRAND, CHECK BOX)
- 3 cups water
- Gel food coloring (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple)
- 1 container White icing
- Sprinkles & Whipped cream (for topping if desired)
Instructions
- Mix 3 cups water with 4 cups Complete Pancake mix. (Prepare pancake mix according to package instructions to make at least 24 pancakes - 4 stacks of 6 pancakes.)
- Separate the pancake batter into six small bowls. Add a different color of gel food coloring to each bowl and stir until the food coloring is thoroughly mixed into the batter.
- Heat pan or skillet over medium heat.
- Scoop ¼ cup of each color of pancake batter onto a hot griddle or skillet. And cook until bubbles begin to form. Flip the pancake and cook the other side.
- Form the rainbow pancake stack by stacking one of each color pancake on top of each other.
- To create a syrup out of icing, microwave a container of premade white icing for 20 seconds. Spoon the melted icing over the top of the pancake stack.
- Top with whipping and sprinkles, if desired!
Notes
Nutrition
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Stephanie Rutledge says
These are so cute! Would wouldn’t like a little rainbow for breakfast in the mornings.