The key to getting perfectly shaped pancakes is all in how you pour the batter on to the griddle. If you don't pour all of the batter from the center, you will end up with pancakes that are not perfect circles. Happily there is an easy way to do this... use a turkey baster to "pour" the batter. Just fill up the baster and then gently squirt all of the batter into the griddle. If you do this, you'll get perfect circles every time.

Another advantage of this is that you can precisely control the amount of batter used to make the pancake, and thus you can control the final size of the pancake. I have marks on the turkey baster to indicate the preferred size for the kids, my husband, and my self. We all get the perfect sized and shaped pancake every time... and all without any fancy equipment.