As Shrove Tuesday finally lands, it's time to whip out your flipping skills and load your beautiful golden treats with all of the toppings under the sun - sweet and savoury.
But for those who haven't quite mastered the perfect mid-fry flip, there is another way to cook your pancakes - and it's leaving people completely at a loss for words at its ingenuity.
Those who want to avoid pancakes stuck to their ceilings or nasty burns from pans may want to turn to their humble air-fryer today, with the appliance more than capable of whipping up a batch of fluffy treats.
Read more: Seven places to get mouthwatering pancakes this Shrove Tuesday in the North East
The Mirror reports the humble piece of cooking equipment has reached kitchen stardom in recent months thanks to being cheaper to run during the cost of living crisis and its versatility when it comes to cooking. Foodies have been rustling up everything from a full roast dinner to boiled eggs in their air fryers, and now it turns out that it's easy to make gloriously fluffy pancakes in one too.
Ahead of Pancake Day, a pancake tutorial video posted by appliance brand Currys went viral on TikTok as their unusual technique has people seriously mind-blown. Others have taken to the social media app to try the hack themselves, with great success.
The popular video shows a pancake fan lay down various sheets of baking paper on the bottom of the air fryer basket, before pouring a small amount of pancake mix on top. The foodie then proceeds to add another layer of paper and repeats the process over and over, until the air fryer is full.
The end result shows perfectly plump, American-style pancakes with a golden colour on top. The pancakes are then stacked into a mouth-watering pile before being drizzled with a generous amount of chocolate sauce and sprinkles.
The video creators, unfortunately, haven't shared the exact recipe, timings, or temperature for the method, but plenty of other TikTokers whipped up their own version under the hashtag #airfryerpancakes. People flooded to the comments section on Currys' video to share how impressed they were by the hack, adding that they couldn't wait to try it themselves.
Regretful that they hadn't discovered the trick sooner, one pancake fan wrote: "Excuse me!? I don't need to flip a million little pancakes!!" while another, added: "Is there anything they can't do???!"
"What!?!?!?! genius" another fan added.
While most commenters were more than keen to try the air fryer method, others weren't convinced, as one TikToker wrote: "In theory I can see this work but the raw mixture doesn't look like it has enough volume to be this fluffy. also the first pancake would be more like a crapé bc [because] of the weight of the others on top.
"End result looks shop brought. you don't get that level of browning with that method."
Defending the hack, another foodie replied, saying: "I've done these in the air fryer, add baking powder & yes they do brown like this".
Would you try this air fryer pancakes hack? Let us know in the comments.
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