How to Make a Pancake Board for a Picture-Perfect Brunch
Updated: Dec. 21, 2021
Delight your guests with a pancake charcuterie board overflowing with syrups, breakfast sausage, fresh fruit and other morning favorites.
Want to switch up your entertaining routine? Skip the standard dinner party or happy hour and host a stunning brunch instead. And not just any brunch—one featuring a pancake “charcuterie” board.
Creating a breakfast charcuterie board brimming with goodies fresh from the griddle is simple. Just pull up your favorite pancake recipe and your favorite serving pieces. We’ll show you how to do the rest.
Foods to Include on a Pancake Charcuterie Board
Pancakes: Let’s start with the obvious! You need a great pancake recipe for your pancake board. Our Test Kitchen loves this recipe for fluffy pancakes but there are lots of tasty riffs on the breakfast classic, including brown sugar-oatmeal pancakes and homey buttermilk pancakes.
Eggs:Â Fill out your breakfast board with a heaping helping of scrambled eggs. This is one of the easier ways to serve eggs for a group.
Breakfast meats: No pancake breakfast is complete without a few strips of crispy bacon or breakfast sausage. To keep your griddle free for flipping pancakes, try baking bacon in the oven. It’s also a great way to keep your stovetop grease-free.
Fruit: To make a complete breakfast, be sure to fill in any gaps in your board with fresh fruit like blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and slices of banana. The fruit can be eaten on its own or used as a pancake topper.
Toppings: Syrups (like classic maple syrup and homemade strawberry syrup), jam and whipped cream can turn flapjacks from plain to indulgent in a flash. We also added bowls of Nutella, chocolate chips, peanut butter and cubed butter to our board for a decadent selection of pancake toppings.
Tools for Creating a Pancake Charcuterie Board
No charcuterie board—be it a cheese board or hot chocolate board—is complete without the perfect canvas. Lay the foundation for your breakfast spread with a large serving board and your favorite serveware. Building charcuterie boards is great excuse to pull out all the pretty dishes you’ve collected over the years.
- Serving board: The base for any board is the serving tray. Make sure you have one that’s large enough to accommodate all the foods and extras you want to include. If you can’t find a board big enough for your party, a large sheet pan will do just fine.
- Syrup pitchers: Don’t forget to have a few of these pitchers on hand. Fill them with your favorite maple and fruit syrups.
- Small bowls: Fill small dishes with plenty of extras like fruit, yogurt and pancake toppings (hello, banana slices and Nutella!).
- Small serving spoons: With so many small dishes, you’ll need some spoons to scoop up all the ingredients. Your standard flatware works just fine, but these handmade ceramic spoons are extra special.
- Butter spreader: Make sure you’ve got plenty of butter to top those toasty pancakes. This butter spreader makes smoothing even cold butter a breeze.
How to Build a Pancake Charcuterie Board
Once everything is cooked or taken out of the package, it’s time to make your pancake board. Start by placing your bowls and pitchers, spreading them out in different spots on the board so they’re not all clumped together. Don’t forget spoons!
Instead of a tight stack, fan the pancakes out to keep your board visually interesting. Next, add larger items like breakfast sausages.
Fill in gaps on the board with colorful berries and sliced bananas. Now you’re ready for brunch!
Tips for Making a Pancake Charcuterie Board
Need more ideas on how to make your pancake-filled brunch board a success? We’ve got answers to your questions.
How do you keep the pancakes warm?
Don’t worry about flipping pancakes fast for your board. It’s easy to keep them hot and ready while you prepare other elements of the board (or wait for folks to wake up).
To keep pancakes, bacon, sausage and other foods warm, place the items on sheet pans and pop them in your oven on the warm setting. If you don’t have a “keep warm” setting, heat the oven to 200ºF. Pancakes, and other hot foods, will be fine for 30 minutes or more.
If you only need to keep things hot for a few minutes while the coffee brews, just cover the tray with another platter or a sheet of aluminum foil.
What other pancake toppings can you include?
The topping options for pancakes are limitless! You won’t go wrong with fruit, chocolate chips, toasted nuts and a variety of flavored syrups.
What drinks pair with a pancake board?
All you need to accompany your board are the breakfast classics: coffee, orange juice and maybe a bottle of bubbly for mimosas. If you’ve got iced coffee lovers at your table, learn how to make cold brew at home.
Originally Published: December 21, 2021
