Pancakes are my melatonin. My sleep aid. My counting sheep. My night-night fuel that whisks me away to Kirby’s Dream Land. Pancakes, for me, have been a bedtime food for most of my adult life.
I’ve tried other methods for falling asleep. Sometimes I play the sound of rain. That does the trick nicely, and I fall asleep to the soothing sounds of stormy pitter patter. Although, if I listen to it too much, all of my Discover Weekly tracks on Spotify are things like “Thunderstorms: 4” and “Jungle Sounds from Central America” instead of actual music. I’ll often read to dull my eyes or put on a TV show I’ve seen a thousand times, but nothing quite sends me off to dream land like a big stack of hot pancakes lathered in butter and deluged with maple syrup.
Friends, pancakes are a late night food and that’s where they belong. They are warm, buttery, sugary, fluffy disks, which I will remind you are aesthetically just like cookies. That’s all pancakes are: fluffy, soft, confectionary treats. Are cookies breakfast food? Nah, dude, they’re dessert—a night time venture, something you eat when you’re done eating. Sweets are a way to call it a night; chocolate cake at the end of a meal. Late night pie and coffee at a diner. If you just take that next logical step, you’ll realize pancakes are best eaten after hours.
Douse the Most Important Meal of the Day in These 7 Maple Syrups
This taste test was the most surprising one to date. After trying many, many brands of maple syrup, we learned that everyone on the Sporked staff hates actual, authentic maple syrup.
Pancakes for breakfast? A dangerous, radical idea. You know what happens after you eat pancakes? Nothing, dude. You take a nap at 10 a.m. Your brain becomes cement. If you eat pancakes and go to work you are 40% more likely to get fired (statistic pulled out of thin air). There’s a reason athletes do commercials for Wheaties and not IHOP or Log Cabin. No, a stack of pancakes is synonymous with finality. They’re throwing in the towel. Waving goodbye to all of your troubles for the day. Night night, crushing debt, loneliness, and general life uncertainty. Time to whisk yourself away to pancake land, where nobody dies, butter is good for you, and everybody can dunk a basketball.
Moreover, pancakes are there for you in a pinch late at night. Sometimes I come home a little inebriated from the bar or I’ve got a sudden case of munchies. Those nights when I’m starving and there’s nothing in the fridge? I always have pancake batter. And if I don’t, I always have the things to make pancake batter: eggs, flour, milk, sugar, and baking soda. Whipping together a hot stack of pancakes is as easy as ordering takeout—and it’s a whole lot cheaper, too.
Late at night, when you want a hot meal but don’t feel like cooking anything, pancakes are there for you. They’re a fluffy pillow for you to rest your head on, weary traveler. Pancakes are the food equivalent of curling up in your covers on a chilly day. They’re a hug from a good friend when you need it most. They gladden and comfort with their intimacy. Let the butter, flour, and pure sugary syrup hold you in their arms and tell you it’s going to be okay.
Because it is, so long as you eat your pancakes.
Please review best dry pancake mixes.
This is what I’d really like to know. Was hoping it would be included in an article about pancakes.
I don’t eat pancakes anymore (unfortunately) but I’ll admit pancakes late at night seemed better than in the morning. While I did enjoy a nice pancake breakfast on a Saturday with family, I would almost always get chocolate chip diner pancakes after the opening night of a theatre performance; the nostalgia of that makeslate night pancakes seem a bit better. It’s not a sleeping pill for me but more a reminder of better and happier times with friends.
Ok, trying it tonight.
Please do 7 best dry pancake mixes.
This. This. I was literally about to reply with this.