These love bug pancakes were SO fun to make with the kids!! I’m now officially “that mom” who makes fun seasonal pancake shapes. Love bug pancakes are perfect for a special Valentine’s Day breakfast, and I’m sharing my go-to pancake recipe which makes the best fluffiest pancakes every time!
All you have to do to make your very own love bugs is make a pancake batter, then dye half the batter with the ‘wing’ color. After that, make the pancakes in various shapes, decorate and enjoy!
Someone gifted us this panini press/griddle for our wedding and I’d say out of all my kitchen appliances, this is the one that gets used most! We make pancakes ALL the time and it’s so easy to clean.
To make these extra festive for Valentine’s Day, we used red food coloring, but you can make the wings of the love bugs green, blue, pink or any color you’d like!
What do you need to decorate love bug pancakes?
- Candy eyes – we used these
- Semi-sweet chocolate chips – you can also use white chocolate chips if you’d prefer
- Black gel frosting/writing gel – you’ll use this for antennas and smile. Or you could use pretzel pieces or candy licorice
- Red food coloring, or any color you’d like
If you’ve been following along for awhile now, you know that I love cooking with the kids in the kitchen and I’m definitely adding these love bug pancakes to my list of favorite things to make with them.
Love Bug Pancakes
These love bug pancakes are so much fun to make with the kids and perfect to make for Valentine's Day!
Print RateServings: 10 love bugs pancakes (3 varying pancake sizes for each love bug)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 4 Tablespoons butter melted
- 1 1/2 cups milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups flour
- 4 teaspoons baking powder * please see note, make sure your baking powder doesn't contain aluminum
- 4 drops red food color
For decorating
- Candy eyes, chocolate chips, black gel frosting
Instructions
- In a bowl mix the milk, melted butter, vanilla extract and 3 eggs. Whisk until well combined. Add in the flour and baking powder. Stir until mixed. It's ok to have a few lumps in the batter, if you mix it too much, your pancakes might turn out a little chewy.
- Divide batter between two bowls. Into one bowl add 4 drops of red food coloring and mix. Let batter sit for 5 minutes while the griddle heats.
- Heat a griddle (or non-stick pan). Spray with a little cooking spray. Spoon the batter onto the griddle (or pan) - you'll need small heads (about 1 tablespoon batter) and medium bodies (about 2-3 tablespoons of batter) and wings (the colored batter - about 3-4 tablespoons batter). Cook pancakes until the edges are dry and you can start to see bubbles appear on the surface, about 2-3 minutes, then flip and cook for another minute.
- Transfer pancakes to a cooling rack (or keep pancakes warm on a baking sheet in a 200 degree oven until you have them all made).
To assemble love bugs:
- Cut the colored pancake in half. On a plate place a small head, a body, and then the colored wings on top of the body. Place the eyes, draw on the antenna and the smile, place chocolate chips on the wings and voila, enjoy!
Video
Notes
*A note on BAKING POWDER – make sure it doesn’t contain aluminum in the ingredients. After I received a few complaints about a weird sour taste I made and remade them testing them and could never replicate the taste until one random weekend when I made them they tasted just awful. Turns out it was a new baking powder I was using that was off brand. Apparently sometimes they add aluminum in the form of sodium aluminum phosphate and/or sodium aluminum sulfate – it’s sometimes added to double-acting baking powder to make it heat sensitive. Aluminum in baking powder is not harmful, but it can leave a slightly metallic and bitter/sour taste in your mouth, so please check your baking powder! ___________________________________________________________ Your comments and feedback are helpful and appreciated!! If you’ve tried this recipe or any other recipe on SweetPhi.com, please rate the recipe and leave a comment below! If you took some photos, we'd love to see them - you can share on Instagram or email them to phi@sweetphi.com and we'll add it to our reader recreations!
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