For The Easiest Pancake Ever, Grab This Unexpected Kitchen Appliance

Fluffy pancakes for breakfast? Yes, please. Waking up early to make them? No, thank you. It might only take three ingredients to whip up morning pancakes, but babysitting them over the stove with sleep still in your eyes isn't a task many folks look forward to. Thankfully, there's an easier way to get your breakfast on. While there are a few foods that don't belong in a slow cooker, surprisingly, flapjacks aren't one of them.

That's right, you can enjoy a delightful pancake breakfast smothered in the best maple syrup money can buy straight out of everyone's favorite kitchen appliance. Just make your batter as you normally would, whether that means following the directions on a boxed mix or whisking it up from scratch. Generously oil the inside of your crock, pour in the batter, and turn the appliance on high. In one to two hours (depending on your batter recipe and the nuances of your slow cooker), fluffy, golden-brown pancakes will be ready to eat. You can check that they're done using the toothpick test.

Mind you, these pancakes won't look exactly like they do when they arrive at your table at your local diner. They will be thicker, and you'll be enjoying a slice or rectangle of pancake rather than a perfect circle (depending on how you cut the cake from the slow cooker). But after a few minutes of mixing your batter and tossing it in the appliance, your work is done.

Making a satisfying pancake breakfast has never been easier with the slow cooker method, but there are a few things to consider for the best results. One trick that will help is placing paper towels under the lid of your appliance. This allows moisture to escape instead of dripping back down into your batter while the pancakes cook, preventing them from being soggy.

While there is nothing wrong with making plain Jane pancakes and calling it a morning, don't be afraid to experiment with different recipes if you want something a bit more flavorful. Tossing some vanilla into the batter will give your flapjacks a welcome depth of flavor, and adding fresh blueberries turns humdrum pancakes into a classic diner staple. If you're craving something sweeter when you get up, you could even say goodbye to boring pancakes by swapping chocolate milk for the regular milk in the batter.

If you want to wake up to the aroma of pancakes wafting from your kitchen instead of preparing everything right out of bed, you can cook them overnight. If your appliance has a timer that stops it from cooking after a specific timeframe, put your batter in like normal before you go to bed, and let it cook for two hours. Be forewarned, this is somewhat of a gamble because the warming function on the slow cooker could potentially dry them out before you wake up. But if push comes to shove and your pancakes aren't as moist as you prefer, that's what butter and maple syrup are for.