Mini Tuxedo Pancakes — Light, fluffy, mini buttermilk pancakes, with milk chocolate and white chocolate chips folded into the batter, topped with a sweet, smooth, peanut butter sauce.

Wow guys, it has been a minute since I wrote a blog post! The month of May was crazy and at the end of it, I found myself just a wee bit exhausted… okay, okay that’s an understatement, I was freakin warn out. Like I had a total melt down, not being overdramatic at all when I say that. So I took a bit of a step back from recipe development to figure out some other business aspects — but it is okay, because I am back with a new recipe! These mini tuxedo pancakes are so freaking delicious! They are light and fluffy bites of heaven, with melted bites of milk chocolate and white chocolate folded in, and they’re finished with a creamy smooth peanut butter sauce! The sauce my friends is what puts the pancakes over the top!!

So let’s dive into the specifics shall we!

Making the Pancake Batter

The secret to making these Mini Tuxedo Pancakes Pancakes, is to not over mix the batter! Everything inside of you, will tell you to mix the batter so that there’s no clumps left in it. But I am begging you, if you read nothing else, read this! Do not over mix the pancake batter! Clumps are not bad. Now of course, you don’t want the batter to be super lumpy, but you don’t want the batter to be so smooth there’s no lumps, because this means we’ve actually over mixed the batter, which will activate our baking soda, before the pancake has a chance to cook, which results in flat pancakes. We want the baking soda to activate while the pancake is cooking over the heat — this will lead to fluffy pancakes!

My best recommendation when making these pancakes is to use a wooden spoon, to fold together the wet and dry ingredients. This will combine the ingredients in such a way that will reduce clumps, but will keep the batter from being over mixed. And if you do find a little clump in the batter when you spoon the batter into the pan, never fear, just use the back of spoon or spatula to rub the clump into the batter.

Adding the Chocolate Chips

I have two tips when it comes to adding the chocolate chips to the pancakes! First, instead of mixing the chocolate chips straight into the mixing bowl, with all the batter. For these pancakes, we add the chocolate chips to the pancakes when they are in the pan cooking. This probably sounds weird, and completely counter to what you normally would think to do, but let me tell you, this trick is sooo helpful. This trick first, allows us to control how many chocolate chips are in each pancake! Okay, hear me out on this, if we just mix the chocolate chips into pancake batter, the chocolate chips sink in the batter, so then there’s an unequal distribution of chocolate chips between the pancakes, because some will have more chocolate chips and some will have less. By adding the chocolate chips directly to the pancake when it’s in the pan, this gives us control over the amount.

The second reason we add the chocolate chips directly to the pancake batter in the pan, is because this helps us not have crunchy chocolate chips! You know when a chocolate chip cooks on a pan, and it gets a hard crunchy shell? Ya, that’s what can happen when we mix the chocolate chips in with the rest of the batter, they sink, and then hit the pan when they’re cooking and get all crunchy, which tastes weird with a soft pancake, buuut when we add the chocolate chips directly to the pancake in the pan, the chocolate chips sit on the top of the pancake as it’s cooking, and then we add just a little more batter on top of the chocolate chips, and this sandwiches the chocolate chips into the pancake batter. So they don’t touch the pan. Now as the chocolate chips cook inside the pancake, they got all soft, melty, and delicious!

Making the Peanut Butter Sauce

Making the Peanut Butter Sauce is fairly straight forward, the first step is to microwave the peanut butter and half of the milk in the microwave to heat it up a bit. This help the ingredients combine better. Then we add in the powdered sugar and vanilla extract. This will make the Peanut Butter Sauce thicken up significantly. Once the sauce is thick, then we add in the remaining milk, and this is what turns our peanut butter paste into a sauce!

Substitutions

Gluten-free Version

To make these pancakes gluten free, I would recommend using a gluten free flour, like Cup4Cup. This flour allows you to use the exact same proportions of flour, as if you were using All-purpose flour. Cup4Cup flour also results in pancakes that have the same texture as as regular flour.

Dairy-free Version

Instead of using regular milk, you can use a milk alternative like almond milk or oat milk. The milk in this recipe primarily acts as a moisture component to help us achieve a soft pancake interior. For this recipe we use milk and vinegar for our “buttermilk,” which makes it easier to substitute the milk with a milk alternative. The use of vinegar, gives us more freedom in the type of milk that we use. A milk alternative, like almond milk or oat milk, may result in a slightly flatter pancake, but overall the difference won’t be too significant, because vinegar is our acid that activates the baking soda in the recipe, instead of real buttermilk.

Additionally, you can also substitute regular chocolate chips with dairy-free chocolate chips.

Nut-free Version

Skip the Peanut Butter Sauce, and top these beauties with syrup!

How to make The Best Mini Tuxedo Pancakes

For the Pancakes

1. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and baking soda.
2. In a separate mixing bowl combine the milk, vinegar, oil and egg.
3. Fold together the dry ingredients and wet ingredients, until just combined.
4. Turn the stove top onto medium heat, and add a dollop of oil to a small skillet. Add a dollop of pancake batter to the skillet, drop a few white chocolate chips and semi-sweet chocolate chips to the dollop of pancake batter. Drop a little more pancake batter onto the top of the chocolate chips, so they’re just covered.
5. Let the pancake cook for about two minutes, until bubbles start to appear on the top of the pancake. Flip the pancake over, and let it cook for about a minute on the other side.
6. Remove the pancake from the heat. Repeat the process until you’ve cooked however many pancakes you want to make. Top the pancakes with the Peanut Butter Sauce.

For the Peanut Butter Sauce

1. In a small bowl combine the two tablespoons of peanut butter and half of the milk, microwave for about 30 seconds.
2. Stir in the powdered sugar. The mixture will thicken up, add in the remaining milk, the Vanilla Extract, and syrup. Whisk the mixture together until creamy and smooth.