SCOTT CITY, Mo. — Two southeastern Missouri inmates who used pancake batter to cover a hole they cut in a wall between jail cells will at least have a plate the next time they try such a culinary trick.

The Scott City Jail is adding steel plates to its interior walls after the industrious inmates made the hole and hid it with flapjack mix and toothpaste, police said.

Jail staff discovered the opening this weekend, police Chief Don Cobb said. He said inmates removed a block from the wall, allowing a female inmate to slide into the next cell, where a male inmate was housed.

The inmates fashioned a digging tool with a nail, a wire from a light fixture and a toothbrush, Cobb said. The mixture of pancake batter and toothpaste used to cover the gap looked like mortar, he said.

Prisoners were to stay in a county jail until a security check is completed at the city building.

The city jail’s exterior walls are already reinforced with steel to prevent inmates from escaping, Cobb said.

“Unless they can smuggle in an arc welder, they aren’t getting through that,” he said.