Air Fryer Pancakes with berries and maple syrup

How do I make pancakes in an air fryer?

You'll need to use some sort of tray to hold the pancake batter while it air fries. Mini pie tins or silicone muffin cups can work. But they tend to have a narrow bottom. The best ones out there are silicone air fryer egg pan.

But instead you can cut out your own trays using aluminum foil.

Make some aluminum pancake trays

All you need is a small bowl or ramequin, and some aluminum foil.

Start by placing your bowl upside-down in your air fryer basket to see how many you can fit. With my bowl in the corner, I can see I should fit about 4 trays comfortably.

Then flip the bowl over, and line it with a sheet of foil about 1/2 inch over the sides.

Make sure it's a nice tight fit and there are no gaps for the batter to leak through.

Now you can remove the bowl, and you're left with a mold to pour in your pancake batter!

Place them into your air fryer basket.

Give them a good spray of oil to prevent the batter from sticking.

Then set them aside while you begin making the batter.

How many pancakes can fit in an air fryer?

For a large air fryer baskets (> 5.5L), you should be able to squeeze in 4 mini pancakes, one in each corner. So I'll make a total of 4 foil trays.

For smaller baskets (< 4.1L) you might only be able to get 1 or 2 trays in there.

How to make 'shake and pour' pancake batter?

Today I'm using up a bottle of "shake and pour" pancake mix. Bought it at Aldi for $3. Bottle says it makes up to 15 pancakes. I got about 8 mini pancakes out of it. Could probably push it to 12-16 if I poured them thinner. So keep that mind when making yours.

Just need to fill up the bottle to the water mark, and give it a good shake for 1 minute.

I like to preheat my air fryer to make sure it's up to temp before air frying. My tin trays are outside the basket, and I've set my air fryer to 350F/180C for 3 minutes.

Once heated, I began to pour a thin layer of batter into the trays.

Careful not to overfill them. Keep them thin to cook quickly and evenly.

At this point I realized I should have placed the empty foil trays in the air fryer basket first before pouring!

Fill up the rest of your pancake trays in your basket.

Once they're all filled, put the basket back into the air fryer and begin cooking!

Air fry for at 350F/180C for 5 min. They'll be light browned, and only halfway done.

Gently peel them off their trays, and give them a flip to brown the other side.

Then air fry them for another 5 minutes. They should be a nice golden brown color and ready to eat!

I had enough batter to make 8 pancakes. So I set aside these cooked ones, and re-used the foil tray for the next batch. Just give them another good spray of oil before laying down your next batter.

What to serve your pancakes with?

Sweet or savory or both, server your pancakes with fresh fruit, maple syrup, or breakfast sausages and bacon.

I made this batch with melted butter, fresh raspberries, blueberries and maple syrup. Then dusted it with some icing sugar.

Phil, thoughts?

If you're cooking for one or two people, and you only have an air fryer to cook with. Then yes, this is a great way to make fluffy, light, delicious pancakes. Keep in mind it would take about 15 min to cook up 8 mini pancakes.

But if I'm making breakfast for the whole fam, and you had an outdoor griddle at your disposal, then you bet your sweet syrup I'll be griddling some cakes.

So yeah, if you're making smaller batches air fry them! Won't have to do any washing up. Just throw away your foil trays and give the basket a wipe out and you're done.