Pancake Cereal Is the Breakfast Trend We Didn’t Know We Needed

I was raised on Scooby-Doo, cereal, and 70s music. These days, only one of those things seems relevant to my life. Cartoons gave way to better television and I traded in Cap'n Crunch for two fried eggs or a bowl of oatmeal. Honestly, it’s been a while since I gave cereal any serious consideration.

That is until this week, when cereal made its way back into popular culture (and my consciousness). How else, but via TikTok, the popular video app that’s taken on new levels of frenzy now that we’re even more connected to our phones than before.

This iteration of cereal is different, though. It’s unique, creative...perfect?

It’s pancake in cereal form. Or cereal in pancake form. Whatever you decide. Because it’s TikTok, and the cradle of so much internet content is difficult to decipher, I wasn’t able to find the original inventor of this trend. But a click on #pancakecereal reveals there’s no dearth of people sampling this breakfast pastiche.

Essentially, here’s how it works: You mix pancake batter (it can be vegan, gluten-free, from a box or from scratch), pour out a bunch of tiny-portion (anywhere from the size of a sparkle to a quarter) pancakes on a hot griddle or skillet, flip them, and collect them in a bowl. Eat with the topping of your choice—the most popular seem to be maple syrup or milk (or both).

Faced with this pre-lunch portmanteau, at first I wondered why? But then I thought, why not? Pancakes are good, cereal is good. Should work, right? Plus, we’re stuck in our houses, so why not experiment, be silly, mash two things together and see what comes out the other end.

I have yet to try pancake cereal, but I think I’ve found my weekend plan. I can see it already. I’ll probably add a splash of oat milk, and sit there wishing I had maple syrup (but I don’t because I live in Spain where it’s almost impossible to find). Some people on TikTok have added soft pats of butter on top of the whole shebang and, honestly, that’s not a bad idea. Maybe if I’m feeling really fancy, I’ll go the whole nine yards and add in some bacon bits to get that full breakfast sweet-and-salty kind of situation going. Or maybe I’ll douse them with some very milky coffee. You feel me?

In the meantime, here are some of my favorite videos of TikTokers trying this at home.

Fun quarantine food or fuhgeddaboudit? Tell us how you feel in the comments below!