Pancake Truffles

Pancakes and maple cream cheese buttercream collide to make these maple-licious truffles!

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last 10 years, or you’ve just never owned a Pinterest account, then I’m sure you’ve heard of the ever-so-trendy cake truffles or cake balls. If not, feel free to head on over to my super simple step-by-step instructions and recipe!

Anyway, I’m not sure why it took me so long to create a recipe for these, seeing as it’s been on my iPhone recipe to-make list for the last three years…THREE YEARS, PEOPLE! Nonetheless, I’m introducing them to you today. 

Wanna see?

PANCAKE TRUFFLES!!!

Yes, pancake truffles! Now you too can have a totally legitimate reason to eat truffles for breakfast.

Considering the fact that I’ve made countless batches of cake truffles in the past, I figured it was time to step outside of the box. Pancakes seemed like an obvious choice seeing as the word “cake” is literally in the name. The only question was what was I was going to mix the pancakes with? 

Butter?

Maple syrup?

Hmmm…how about a maple cream cheese buttercream frosting! Genius! If I do say so myself…that way, you get ALL of the wonderful flavors of a syrupy stack of pancakes in one.

In order to cut out some of the work (and a potential stack of burnt pancakes), I decided to bake one large pancake in the oven. Did you know you could do that?? While I probably wouldn’t recommend it for a regular pancake breakfast (pancakes are meant to be eaten as circles, not squares), it worked out perfectly for this recipe since I was just going to mash it up anyway.

Once the giant pancake was baked and the sweet, syrupy maple cream cheese frosting was made, it was time to combine the two into several beautiful pancake truffle babies. A lot easier to make than real babies, right? Actually, let’s not go there…

Now it was time to dip! Since I couldn’t decide (which has been the case for 99% of my life), I dipped half of the truffles in a maple-infused white chocolate coating and the other half in melted peanut butter chips.  Because who doesn’t like peanut butter on pancakes? Well, I guess people with peanut allergies…womp womp.

Because eating all 48 pancake truffles in one sitting seemed like a bad idea, I brought some to my work instead. My coworkers could NOT get enough of them! They thought they tasted just like pancakes soaked in maple syrup, but a lot less messy.

These pancake truffles would also be perfect for brunch parties! 

And just like cake truffles, the possibilities are endless with pancake truffles. You could use chocolate chip pancakes instead of plain buttermilk pancakes and dip them in semi-sweet or milk chocolate. You could also mix the pancakes with Nutella or peanut butter instead of frosting. Or maybe a fruity version by mixing the pancakes with any kind of jam–strawberry, raspberry, marionberry, etc. My mind is exploding with ideas now! Guess it’s back to the kitchen!

Pancake Truffles

Pancakes and maple cream cheese buttercream collide to make these maple-licious truffles!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 1 hour hr 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Refrigeration Time 1 hour hr 10 minutes mins

Total Time 2 hours hrs 45 minutes mins

Course Breakfast, Dessert

Cuisine American

Servings 48 Truffles

Ingredients

  

For the Pancake

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 Tablespoons sugar
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 Tablespoons melted butter

For the Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

• 4 ounces cream cheese softened
• 2 Tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 Tablespoon pure maple syrup
• Pinch of salt
• 1 ½ cups powdered sugar

For Coating

• 7 ounces vanilla almond bark
• 1/16 tsp maple extract
• 7 ounces peanut butter chips
• 1 Tablespoon vegetable oil

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350ºF. Spray a 9x13-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray.
• In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Whisk buttermilk, egg, and vanilla together, and pour into dry ingredients. Add melted butter and stir to combine. Allow to rest for about 5 minutes.
• Pour batter into baking dish and bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes, or until top springs back when touched. Allow to cool completely.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and cream cheese together on high, until smooth. Add the maple syrup and salt and mix until combined.
• With mixer on low, slowly add the powdered sugar, a 1/2 cup at a time. Once all sugar has been added, whip frosting on high for about 30 seconds until light and fluffy.
• Line a large baking sheet with wax paper. Crumble cooled pancake into a large mixing bowl and add the frosting. Use a fork or potato masher to mash everything together until no streaks of frosting or chunks of pancake remain. Roll mixture into balls, then place on the baking sheet and into the refrigerator for an hour.
• Melt almond bark in the microwave, then stir in maple extract until smooth. Use a skewer to stab one of the pancake truffles and dip into the melted almond bark until fully coated. Tap skewer on side of bowl to get rid of any excess almond bark, then use another skewer to release the truffle back onto lined baking sheet. Repeat process until the almond bark has been used up, then refrigerate to allow the chocolate to set up, about 10 minutes.
• Melt peanut butter chips in the microwave, then stir in vegetable oil until smooth. Repeat dipping process with the rest of the truffles. Truffles can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week.

Notes

*It helps to dip truffles in batches of 5-10 so that they don't get too soft from sitting out so long.