It’s that time of year again and like last year, TikTok is full of content claiming that you can make a stack of delicious pancakes, in one go, using your air fryer. There’s now a similar volume of content debunking the first one – but we’re still going to test it for ourselves.
You can see the TikTok for yourself, but, essentially, spoonfuls of pancake batter are poured onto sheets of parchment paper in an air fryer, to form a stack of pancakes that cook at the same time. The video then cuts to a delicious pile of pancakes, generously drizzled with chocolate sauce.
Thus the so-called “Curries air fryer hack” was born. Various websites have jumped on the bandwagon, giving vague and questionable advice on how to replicate this perfect pancake triumph.
As you might have guessed, since its publication, the original video has been widely discredited.
But can it work? In the service of culinary science, we decided to try making pancakes in an air fryer to find out for ourselves.
Crepe batter
We used a BBC Good Foods pancake recipe. For this you will need:
- 100 g plain flour
- 2 large eggs
- 300 ml of milk
- 1 tablespoon of oil
- Pinch of salt
To be clear, this is a crepe recipe. If you prefer American-style pancakes, you can use this recipe from Martha Stewart instead. Either way, good luck to you. Whether or not you add a pinch of baking soda or a little more or less milk or flour, it won’t help you in the wars to come.
You will also need:
Add the ingredients to a bowl and whisk gently. Pour into a carafe.
You now have your pancake mix. I used it in four separate attempts at air fryer pancakes, detailed below.
Pancake 1
I preheated the air fryer using a three-minute preheat setting and poured the pancake batter directly onto the nonstick surface of the cooking drawer. I cooked it for about four minutes at 175°C.
I think the best way to describe the resulting pancake is sad. I feel guilty for giving birth to him. It had a pale, saggy appearance but I was hesitant to bake it further as it had already taken on the texture of a gel insole.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
I delivered it to the tester who, who had been promised pancakes, attacked it valiantly.
The tester’s verdict: “Rubbery. It’s not good. I think a lot of people just wouldn’t eat that.
Pancake 2
The main difference between this attempt and the first is that I laid out a sheet of greased parchment paper and poured the pancake mix onto it. I wanted to know what would happen if you cooked a crepe like they do in the TikTok video.
It turned out that my thirst for knowledge came at a high price.
It’s difficult to identify all the failures that led us to a pancake that looked like a block of halloumi. To start, the parchment paper bunched up at the corners, creating an unappetizing square.
The pancake mix then collected in the center. If you were to sell the finished product, it would probably be illegal to call it a crepe. You will need to label it as a “pancake food block”.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
I did, however, serve this misshapen crepe to our tester.
The tester’s verdict: “A little worse than the last one. It’s pretty horrible. It’s liquid in the middle. Why am I eating this?
Crepe 3
This time I cut the parchment paper into a circle, to avoid a repeat of the square pancake debacle, and cooked it the same way as the previous pancakes.
This is when the air fryer rebelled against being used for purposes so contrary to its nature.
An air fryer is just a mini convection oven, and convection ovens work by circulating hot air. When I opened the cooking drawer, I discovered that the air fryer had thrown the ingredients around like a possessed child in a horror movie. It was ungodly.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
Given the disruptive nature of this iteration, I didn’t give this pancake to the tester. Instead, I decided to put the whole mess in a bag and bury it in the woods.
Crepe 4
I needed a whole new approach. Perhaps, I theorized at this point, the problem was with this particular air fryer. I also own the brilliant Ninja Speedi. It has an amazing non-stick surface, so I preheated it and then poured the pancake batter directly onto the cooking base. I cooked it for about three minutes at 180°C.
Ninja can be proud of the fact that it didn’t stick at all. However, no one can be proud of anything else in this experience. The best that can be said of this bulbous, malformed creation is that it was the least pancake-like of all the attempts and therefore cannot really be called a bad pancake.
Emma Rowley / Foundry
The tester’s verdict: “It tastes like leather. It tastes like eating fabric. No, I don’t want that.
Verdict
Not only is making pancakes in an air fryer a terrible idea, but making pancakes in a skillet is so simple that there’s no need to fiddle with it.
How to (Really) Use an Air Fryer to Make Pancakes
Pancakes are quick and easy to make in a skillet – and it’s honestly the best way to cook them. However, what often happens is that we end up making and eating crepes as we go along, rather than sitting down and enjoying them properly.
THE best air fryer pancake hack is to use your air fryer to keep your cooked pancakes warm before serving them. Preheat your air fryer while you prepare your pancakes, then place the pancakes in the fryer one by one as they cook, separating them with a piece of parchment paper.
Take a look at our roundup of the best air fryers we’ve tested to see all the best air fryers for not cooking pancakes.
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