Math students have achieved the near-impossible and discovered the secret to perfect pancakes. This discovery comes just in time for National Pancake Day 2014 but you can definitely use the recipe all year long.

The students from the University of Sheffield’s Maths Society have figured out the recipe for creating the perfect pancake and it’s all about the relationship between the size of the frying pan, pancake thickness and the number of pancakes required.

Gaby Thompson, the president of the university’s Maths Society, said the experiment was a way to explore the math involved in cooking and baking as recipes have different ratios and there is plenty of science behind what you eat. Thompson said in a statement, “Cooking is a fun and innovative way to demonstrate how math can be used and explored in everyday life and we hope by developing this formula it will encourage more people to engage with the subject and help to combat math phobia.”

For the recipe you will need eggs, milk, butter, plain flour, water and a pinch of salt and the full recipe can be found here. To create the perfect pancake, according to the University of Sheffield students, you need to start by squaring the diameter of the frying pan, measuring in centimeters. Multiply that number by your desired pancake thickness (T) by pi and divide it by four, the formula looks like “D2 x T x Pi / 4.”

That formula is the amount of batter you will need per pancake, measured in milliliters. In order to get the total amount of batter needed the formula would be "D2 x T x Pi x P/4" where P is the number of pancakes you want to make. For those that don't have a pencil and paper, or a spreadsheet open, the University of Sheffield has an Excel app that will calculate the formula automatically and it can be found here.

Of course, since March 4 is National Pancake Day 2014, IHOP restaurants nationwide are offering free pancakes all day.