I only make French toast when I have brioche or challah, and I do not make those all that often, although I make challah more often than I make brioche. I definitely make crêpes more often than I make French toast, but then I don't make them for breakfast although I will make them for brunch. Here are some Lingonsylt crêpes that I sometimes make:

These take longer to make than regular pancakes.

I only use frozen blueberries when making blueberry pancakes, as they do not bleed the way fresh ones do. The same for muffins.

I've never made Dutch baby pancakes, but they are on my list of things to try. I'm more likely to make popovers instead, since I have two popover pans.

Plllog, my waffle irons (both of which are Belgian style) do not have a temperature control, and the new one seems to cook hotter than the old one. If I want to soften the crunchiness of the waffles, I cover them for a bit or put them in a plastic bag. I also spritz them with water before reheating them, and that helps.

@Lars Oh jeez. I was today years old when I realized I should use frozen blueberries in my waffles to avoid the arduous task of scrubbing blueberry out of my waffle iron (mine doesnt' have removable plates - it's supposed to be really easy to clean but not when you burn blueberries in it).

Now turn that French toast into a Monte Cristo and the crepes into blintzes. Yum. :)

Incidentally, I also really love hot fluffy pancakes folded over a schmear of butter, no syrup necessary 😀

I definitely prefer crepes, with homemade tropical syrup or fresh blueberries. I'm surprised you state yours are more time consuming than making pancakes, Lars. Mine take less time, if I have the syrup already made in the fridge.

If I am going to eat waffles, I only care for the Belgian type. But I still prefer my crepes.

Each crêpe takes less time to cook than one pancake, but making seven crêpes (one serving) takes a lot more time than cooking one large pancake, which I also consider to be one serving.

Also, I carefully measure batter with a small ladle (which holds the exact amount I want) to make each crêpe, and then there is the extra labor of tilting the crêpe pan to get the batter evenly and very thinly distributed, but then I make very thin crêpes. If I made them thicker, they would be quicker and easier to make. My preferred method is very labor intensive, and they are more difficult to flip than regular pancakes.

I use a 7" French steel crêpe pan when I make them, similar to this. I bought my pan at a Surfas Restaurant Supply back in the 1990s.

I do prefer crêpes, but I generally do not consider them to be breakfast food, which is why I did not include them in the poll.

My crêpe batter also has to be made two hours in advance, whereas pancake batter can be used right away.

I did say that I didn't really like either, but I have to admit that I bought daughter and her wife a waffle maker that makes stuffed waffles! The babies haven't really been introduced to sweets yet, but you can make savory stuffed waffles also, which seemed like a pretty good idea. IDK, maybe PB&J stuffed waffles?

Frangipane stuffed Amaretto waffles?

I like both actually, the thing that matters to me most are the syrups and the add-ons to both of them.

I like both, but am PICKY ;-)

We dont have them often because of the carbs.

However,

DH makes incredible delicious, light, lofty and flavorful whole wheat pancakes. We keep the whole wheat flour in the freezer to kept if fresh. We cook them on a vintage smooth seasoned 12” cast iron skillet. We use honest to goodness Maple syrup (no corn syrup goop). I really love it when he makes them with a fruit such as raspberries, blueberries or apple.

Serve with really good bacon, cooked just right, or with breakfast sausage (an yes, ATRK is right — the pre ooked, then frozen sausage is so much better than the uncooked. No rancid notes.

Decades ago, I had one of those small-squares waffle iron. Thrift store. The best nd I wish I’d held onto it. I had a recipe for fantastic ”Sour Cream Waffles” and they were heavenly. I subsequentl came across that vet same recipe again in a circa 1950s Sunbeam waffle iron recipe pamphlet. So, Lars, for a small fee AND you Ooni pizza oven and all your recipes, I will provide you with a copy of the recipe. Okay, maybe just one of your CC spare roo s for a week.

Those crepes look wonderful. What do you put with them?

My crêpes were filled (not stuffed) with lingonberry jam, and then I just put powdered sugar on them for decoration.

Petalique, you are welcome to visit me in Cathedral City (when I am there), and we can make pizza together. I was going to go today, but my stomach was a bit queasy this morning, and so I'm going tomorrow instead.

Kevin has to work at his office in Culver City now, and so he cannot spend the four weeks that I go there at a time, but he plans to take some vacation time for Palm Springs, once I have finished the kitchen renovation. He really de-stresses while in the desert, even when he is also working from home there. It's very quiet and serene there, compared to L.A., although I always used to think of L.A. as serene compared to San Francisco or New York, or even Mexico City.

As of now, Kevin thinks he will be able to retire in about three years, providing his 401K regains some value. We would sell the house in L.A. at that time, which would give us a good chunk of money for investment. Sony is now offering employees that have worked for 20 years straight to retire at age 60, and then Sony will pay for their health insurance until they qualify for Medicare.

I’ve never made waffles and only eaten them about twice and then just with a sprinkle of icing sugar. I make pancakes (thin 8”, not American pancakes) once a year on Shrove Tuesday aka Pancake Day, and we eat them with lemon juice and a sprinkle of sugar. I don’t much like any other topping and I don’t like fluffy pancakes. Very occasionally I’ll make savoury pancakes with a mushroom or chcken filling. But waffles don’t figure in our diet at all and pancakes only rarely.

Floral, what do you mean by "American pancakes?"

We have hundreds of different kinds of pancakes that are 100% American, plus dozens more that are seen here regularly but come from other cultures/cuisines.

French toast above all, but pancakes slightly over waffles.

I never thought of pancakes as British - I associate them more with Holland, and I associate waffles with neighboring Belgium.

The only British dish I make is crème anglaise, and I use that mainly to make ice cream. I've tried crumpets and always hated them - I much prefer fluffy pancakes or waffles to crumpets. I like to add a bit of cream to my pancake/waffle batter - that makes them melt in my mouth. I generally do not add anything sweet to them - I am not a fan of jams or jelly. However, my favorite pancake is German Apple Pancake, and that is a bit sweet, and is served with crème fraîche and strawberries.

My absolute favorite pancake is okonomiyaki, which is made with a lot of cabbage and has a sort of teriyaki sauce served with it, along with bonito flakes. There is at least one restaurant here that serves nothing but okonomiyaki, and so they have a lot of different variations.

I also very much like cornmeal pancakes.

By ‘American pancakes’ I mean the type you get in a stack at breakfast, maybe with bacon or maple syrup. That’s how theyre described over here. Thick and saucer sized and including a raising agent. It’s the thickness and fluffiness of the ones I’ve had (in the US) which I personally don’t much like. But then I don’t really enjoy anything bulky for breakfast. I might like them better at tea time. https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/american-pancakes 

I don’t think of crème anglaise as being British but I suppose it is, although I’d call it custard. I would consider crumpets to be in the same category as toast in as much as they are spread with butter and eaten as a tea item in the hand rather than off a plate with with a knife and fork. I wouldn’t think of them as being an alternative to pancakes or waffles which would be a meal in themselves.

I think Lars was thinking of crumpets coming off griddle. I've seen rubbery ones sold in the refrigertor case, but buying crumpets here isn't easy, outside of a British specialty shop, so homemade is the most common type.

The link you gave was blocked, but I could sort of see the picture. I wouldn't call that ”typical”. Too thick, and too goopy, but I'm sure you could find that among the hundreds of kinds of pancakes. You're right that most have eggs, and many have buttermilk/soda or baking powder, though not all. Some are short and flat, some light and airy, some tender and some stiff, as small as silver dollars or as big as a dinner plate. Classic with butter and either maple or blueberry syrup, or jam, though spreads like peanut butter or nutella aren't rare, and many people add fresh fruit either on or in the pancakes. There are also buckwheat pancakes, corn (maize) cakes both griddled and fried, and a whole slew of savory ones. There are literally hundreds of kinds of pancakes (plain, before toppings). ”Saucer sized” sounds like the ones from the freezer section that college students and kids of harried moms eat.

Try this link https://realfood.tesco.com/recipes/american-pancakes.html These look like the ones I’ve eaten in the US.

I’ve never eaten a home made crumpet. They're available everywhere and only the very keenest of home bakers would bother to make them. So I can’t compare home made with the shop product.

We also have what some call Scotch pancakes and what my family called drop scones, which, unlike pancakes, are made on a griddle, and are about 3 inches across. They are made with a non yeast batter.

Another griddle item is Welsh cakes, which I absolutely love. They are made with a rubbed in non yeast dough and rolled out. https://www.visitwales.com/things-do/food-and-drink/welsh-food-and-recipes/traditional-welsh-cakes-recipe 

Pikelets are also made on a griddle using a dropped, not rolled, yeast batter. https://theordinarycook.co.uk/2010/11/25/pikelets/ 

Thanks, Lars. It would be a treat to make pizzas or anything with you.

I’m glad Kevin finds your CC home relaxing.

We never stack our pancakes ;-) We make whole wheat PCs from scratch, some bit of leavening. I love them with a few fresh raspberries and real maple syrup. We no longer have them often.

That recipe does look like one of the many versions of American pancakes. We typically make pancakes on a gridde, but any kind of pan they fit in can work, Some make big pancakes in a cast iron skillet and do a saute toss to flip them. Typically, American pancakes don't have yeast, but there are yeasted variations which are still called ”pancakes”.

We have ”drop biscuits”, which most British people call scones, but they're just like cut biscuits but dropped from a spoon onto the pan, rather than patted flat, cut out, and lifted to the pan. Either kind is baked in the oven. So I looked at a couple of ”drop scone” recipes, one from BBC, and one from your Queen! Those are what we'd call ”pancakes”, no question.

The Welsh link was broken.

Don’t know what's going on with that link. Sorry. Try this one for the Welsh Cakes https://www.visitpembrokeshire.com/articles/welsh-cake-recipe

Or you can try it in Welsh .... https://www.visitpembrokeshire.com/cy-gb 

Okay, I did try, but it's been a long time since I spoke any Welsh, and even then I was only up to a simple conversation (though I could read) or ordering a cup of tea. Needless to say, the English site was more informative. They're pretty! I'm not sure of the texture, but it reads otherwise like what we would call a pancake. Specifically, we'd likely call it a ”raisin” pancake, whether it were true raisins, sultanas or currants, given the spice, especially cinnamon, because we have a traditional cinnamon raisin bread, often called just”raisin bread”, which shows up in other forms like raisin bagel (ewww—bagels shouldn't be sweet!). Not that we wouldn't be willing to say ”Welsh cakes”, but no one here knows what those are, and most don't even relate to ”tea cakes”. Far more of us had our last Tea meal as a dolly tea party (with sodapop or purely imaginary tea) than a proper, English style Afternoon Tea. I had a friend who loved afternoon tea at British tea rooms, so I went with her. The cakes were more French cream cakes than anything particularly identifiable as British, which may just be what was available at the local bakeries.

Tough call. I rather like potato pancakes and a lot of savory pancakes. Ruben German pancakes are excellent. Smoked salmon, fennel, and goat cheese ones too. Not so keen on the average batter pancakes, though they are pretty good to use as a base for a breakfast bake. I have one friend that does batter pancakes I like when we go camping. He fries up bacon, then some pancakes and then bacon, then eggs, then pancakes, then bacon and repeat... The eggs and second pancakes after the eggs are the best. With some hot sauce or salsa, and probably whatever ash potatoes from last night.

I like falafel waffles. Belgian style. Fill those nooks up with dips and salads and cheese, top with meats and dressings. Falafel waffle replaces pita. Sometimes in the summer a really light batter Belgian style done up strawberry or blueberry shortcake style as part of brunch. Nice to pick the berries in the morning and lightly sugar, lime juice, and mint them up to get juicy in the fridge. Marscapone smear or cottage cheese, occasionally some homemade whipped cream. Lots of good salted butter at room temp for melting into the waffle.

Also a rather nice waffle base with a bit of black pepper and a melty slab of bread cheese. An herby or dily waffle with watercress and shrimp salad, bloody mary on the side. Anchovy hotel butter and a fried egg. Or left sweet again with creamy gravy and fried chicken or maybe ham and red eye.

Pancakes.

Because I don't know what you should call those divots, indents, cavities, pits, dimples, dents, windows, grids, wells, craters and ---------- on a waffle!

And what are they for? For syrup? Why do you need them on both sides for syrup??

Belgium waffle is a health hazard. It causes lots of obesity because the holes/divots are way too deep for syrup and jam.

dcarch :-)

I eat waffles without syrup, jam, or butter. The cavities affect the texture, and that's what I like about them. It is easy to pick up a waffle with your hand to eat it, whereas this is more difficult with a pancake.

Belgian waffles steamed out properly, smooth and crisp on the outside, airy fluffly on the inside, malted flour and melted butter in the batter, delicious without any goop. Deep pockets way increase the surface area for the delicate crunch of the outside crisp skin. Such a treat! Heavy, bready Belian waffle maker waffles loaded up with the rest of the meal, are sorta fun to eat, but too much bread part to finish and heavy in the tummy.

Pancakes, hands down. It’s easier to control the add-ons on pancakes - the divots in waffles catch and hold too much syrup.

I can’t bring myself to eat french toast. Way too sweet and ’gloppy’ for me. I don’t like gloppy foods. DH, on the other hand, loves it.

French toast depends, as do they all, on how you make them. I rarely eat any of these nowadays, but I used to make savory French toast and waffles. French toast is just bread saturated with custard and griddled. Any open crumb bread will do, including sourdough. You don't have sweeten the custard, or to powder with sugar, either. Milk and wheat have some inherend sweetness, but not too much. I used herbs de province and a tiny bit of onion, plus S&P in the custard, and weighted the mix so the herbs would get in the holes. Delicious totally glop-free, or with just a little schmear of salty butter, for added decadence. Pancakes or waffles, I want real maple syrup, the intense kind, but in reserved quantities rather than syrup-logging. I drip some on my plate, then genteelly pass the bite I've cut off over it. Added benefit, nothing running off the plate. I don't remember so much about savory waffles other than the grooves are too narrow in my Belgian style waffler to make cheese stuffed a good idea (i.e., big mess!), but real pepperoni in the batter (sourdough) and cheese melted on top is good—not pizza! If you think you're getting pizza, you'll be disappointed unless you waffle actual pizza dough.

Little dutch pancakes (Poffertjes) are delicious

I make a whole wheat batter that also includes toasted sesame and sunflower seeds, along with added toasted wheat germ, eggs, buttermilk and a bit o honey . I make waffles with it.

I love peanut butter and molasses on them , or a bit of butter and honey. They dont have to be swimming in sweet stuff, just a dressing.

I make a bowl of batter and bake several waffles and keep them in the fridge or even the freezer. It takes a short time to heat one up in a hot iron skillet.

Dont care much for pancakes, although I would use the very same batter if I were to make pancakes. I never could wrap my self around maple anything. I dont even like the smell of it.

I prefer to use brioche or challah bread for French toast, and it is one of the main reasons I make challah bread. I generally add a couple of tablespoons of flour to the egg/milk mixture for French toast, along with a tablespoon of brandy. I have another recipe for deep fried French toast that uses a thicker batter.

Falafel waffles sound interesting, I'm going to have to come back to this thread for ideas the next time I plan to make waffles or pancakes. I made waffles a couple of weeks ago and found out that my baking powder had expired more than a year ago, and so I had to add some yeast to the batter and wait another hour before cooking them, but they came out fine.

I've never reheated waffles in a hot skillet. I always spritz them with water on both sides and then heat in the toaster oven at 275°F for seven minutes, but I have never frozen them.

I do not keep peanut butter in the house, but I do like almond butter and cashew butter. I might like toasted sesame seeds in waffles, but not sunflower seeds. I do like maple syrup but very seldom eat it.

I use Southern Biscuit Formula L biscuit mix with egg, a touch of sugar and buttermilk and I PROMISE it's the best pancake you will ever have. they only sell that type of biscuit mix in the VA/TN region so anytime we are driving through there I buy the store out and haul it home. I look crazy walking through the store with 15 bags of biscuit mix but the fam is spoiled with how good the pancakes are. But truth be told Im a waffle girl :)

My husband has really perfected pancakes during the COVID (and toddler parenting) era and I love his, especially the banana ones. He uses a simple batter made with buttermilk but then has some very strict rules about adding all the mix-ins right as you finish the batter and then not stirring or disturbing it all while it rests for 30 minutes to an hour. Cooked on a cast-iron griddle on our cast stove and they come out tall and fluffy, even the banana ones (which can otherwise tend towards stodgy). I'm now a pancake snob. Must be served with real maple syrup.

I think french toast is my favourite, though. I make it with thick slices of bread, really deeply saturate each slice with the egg/milk mixture (I always add vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg) and aim for a crispy exterior with a moist custardy-y interior. I like to serve it with sauteed apple slices with cinnamon and just enough caramelized brown sugar mixed through to make them glossy.

We also love to make crepes! I grew up with these as a standard weekend breakfast. When it's just us we do lemon/sugar and banana/chocolate, but for a brunch party I love to provide a big decorate-your-own stack with various berries, whipped cream, syrups, nutella, etc.

@Sedco Plumbing, try garage sales if you don't want to spend much. A lot more people have waffle makers than use them...

I love them both but don't eat them because of the high carb content.

You can get a new waffle iron for $20. I bought my old one at a grocery store for that price, and it has worked well for me for 20 years or so. My brother got an additional one for our other house using "points" he earned at work that he has to use for "prizes."

Our stove in the second house has a central griddle that I like, and so I often just make pancakes, as the central griddle makes that a lot easier, and I can cook three at a time.

You can add protein powder to your pancake/waffle recipe to make them high protein.

I prefer pancakes. They're easier to make and fluffy. I threw out my waffle iron when everything started to stick. I also prefer that pancakes are not crispy on the outside like a waffle.

One of my waffle irons tends to stick, and so I brush it using a silicon brush with some oi before adding batter. The olher waffle iron (which is older) never sticks.

I like crispy waffles, but I do not want crispy pancakes.

My Samsung stove in Cathedral City (where I am now) has a center oval burner and an aluminum griddle to go with it. I can make three good-sized pancakes at the same time on this griddle, which makes pancakes faster to make than waffles.

I find that …very good ….ready to serve pancakes and waffles are readily available.. at stores that are founded on healthy food…I love that they can be frozen..in smaller batches to eat at any time as breakfast ,snack ,or even desert..the uniformity makes them easier to pack in small portions..and also thaw and heat faster…my faves are about 3” in diameter…

I wonder if I could make pancakes using my crumpet molds - I could make the pancakes a bit thicker this way, and they might resemble Welsh cakes this way, which I assume are also made with rings. I guess I should try it anyway the next time I make pancakes. They might tend to stick to the rings, however, although I would butter them first. I did not butter them when I made crumpets, and the crumpets did not stick, but that's a different recipe.

I know this is old but after reading beesnees comment above I really want to try a falafel waffle now :)

I had to get rid of my forty year old Black and Decker waffle iron last month because the Teflon was flaking. I'm holding off buying a new waffle maker because of the price of the Breville, which gets the best reviews for even browning. In forty years I've made many more waffles than I have pancakes because pancakes only really come out good in a cast iron pan and I have a glass top stove.

I recently bought a small Presto griddle to make pancakes and I love it! But now you're making me miss waffles. I wonder if it's too late to ask Santa for a new waffle maker.

You could get a Cuisinart Waffle Maker for $30 instead of the way more expensive Breville. but it depends on whether you want square or round waffles and, to some extent, how much storage space you have for it. I would love to have a Breville waffle maker, but I cannot justify the cost, even though I make a lot of waffles. If I had the space for it to stay on a countertop, it would be a different matter.

I was looking at the small round one for $130. The 4 slice is way out of my budget for a waffle maker. What I like about the small Breville is it only takes two minutes to make a waffle, so we could each have a waffle at the same time. We wouldn't need a big waffle maker.

Waffles are better for making ice cream sandwiches, and pancakes are better for making large amounts and reheating them in the toaster.

It never occurred to me to reheat pancakes in the toaster, but then my only toaster lives in the garage. I reheat pancakes in the toaster oven, and I spritz them with water before reheating them so that they will be soft and fluffy. I generally heat them at 200 to 250° for 5 minutes or less. At 250° they get somewhat toasty.

I know this is an old thread - Floral, if you're still here, I'd like the recipe for the drop scones you mentioned, if you have one. I make baked scones, but never have tried dropped scones. Thanks!

"We also have what some call Scotch pancakes and what my family called drop scones, which, unlike pancakes, are made on a griddle, and are about 3 inches across. They are made with a non yeast batter. "

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/drop_scones_38257

Hmm - are drop scones the same as girdle(griddle) scones? I've made the latter long ago, and the recipe seems similar, except mine didn't use self raising flour.

I had to look up girdle/griddle scones as I have never made or eaten one. They use a rolled out dough. Drop scones are exactly what the name implies. You drop or pour a liquid batter onto your hot plate. They're not made with a dough.