Recipes: pancakes

One of the hardest things to handle once I switched to a diet free of grains, gluten and sweeteners was missing all my favorite breakfast foods. Waffles....bagels....muffins....french toast...and pancakes. Boy do I love pancakes!

Well, I've since developed two recipes for pancakes, each of which has much to recommend it but both of which are quite unique. The first recipe is all but indistinguishable from the usual wheaten type of pancake or flapjack, yet contains no wheat or sweetener. It can also be tailored to a certain degree to a vegan diet. It makes enough pancakes for 3-4 people (depending upon how much each person eats).

I recommend having the oven on its lowest bake temperature with a ceramic dish on the top rack, into which you can deposit the pancakes as they are finished. That way the whole batch can be taken to the table together, quite warm and tasty, to be eaten. I also recommend using a cast iron griddle; I avoid the non-stick pans as the coating is unpredictable and wears microscopically into our food for years before we know it has eroded away. Just coat the pan with a little canola spray or melted organic Earth Balance butter spread (or you can use real butter if you prefer, but the Earth Balance has the advantage of being trans-fat and cholesterol free AND contains healthy Omegas).

Oddly these pancakes have a taste of corn to them, though they contain none of that particular grain! Note that I use organic ingredients whenever possible; nearly all of the ingredients below can be purchased in both organic and conventional forms.

1/4 cup soy flour
1 1/4 cups brown rice flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 egg
1 1/2 cups milk or water
1/4 cup canola or safflower oil

Heat your cast iron griddle on medium heat while you mix together your ingredients. Mix together the dry ingredients in a decently sized bowl. In a second, smaller bowl, beat the egg with a long-tined fork until the yolk and white are thoroughly mixed but not frothy. Add in the milk/water and oil and mix until blended, then add the liquid contents to the bowl of dry ingredients and stir until well blended. Spray your hot griddle with canola spray for several seconds or allow a tablespoon of organic Earth Balance to melt, then drop the pancake batter onto the griddle in 1/4-cup increments. You hopefully have a griddle large enough that four pancakes will cook at the same time. Allow the cakes to cook until you see several bubbles steadily appearing in the center of each cake, then flip with a stainless steel spatula. Let the cakes cook on their second side for about 2-4 minutes, and then deposit into the ceramic dish waiting in your warmed oven.

If you want to make this recipe vegan, replace the egg with 1 tablespoon of flax seed meal, to which you add 3 tablespoons of hot water and allow to sit for ten minutes. Stir it occasionally during that 10 minutes to make sure it thickens evenly. You'll find that pancakes made with flax egg replacer and water will be a bit less fluffy than those made with egg and milk, but they're still very tasty!  In either case you can make blueberry pancakes by adding about 2 cups of wild or domestic blueberries (fresh or thawed frozen berries are fine). Alternatively you can make apple cinnamon pancakes by adding about 1/2-3/4 cup of spiced apple butter to the batter.

In the second type of pancake, there's absolutely no grain and no baking powder, and to my knowledge they cannot be made vegan. I'll be honest; I haven't yet tried. However, my suspicion is that the texture would be rather slimy, so if you prefer to stay vegan, this is not the recipe for you. If you are allergic to nuts, this is also not the recipe for you, as it uses almond and hazelnut meal in place of flour. It doesn't make as much food as the first recipe either; it only makes four medium-sized nutcakes, but you can double or triple the recipe as needed for your family. These cakes are very filling, though, so be cautious about making too many! They contain a great number of marvelous nut oils and are very high in fiber, so you will usually find you don't need to eat as many as you would of the more usual type of pancake.

Again, I recommend using a cast iron griddle sprayed with canola oil or greased with melted organic Earth Balance spread. Heat the griddle on medium heat while you mix together the ingredients as follows:

1/4 cup hazelnut meal
1/4 cup almond meal
1/4 cup flax seed meal
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk

If you wish to make these nutcakes in a blueberry form, replace the milk with blueberry juice; use about 1 cup of wild or domestic blueberries (wild are often better only because they are smaller and easier to mix into the batter). You can even make an apple cinnamon variety by adding about 2 tablespoons of spiced apple butter.

Mix together all dry ingredients in a bowl, then add the eggs and milk. Stir vigorously with a fork to blend the batter. You'll find you can mix the above amounts together in a decently-sized cereal bowl; if you double the recipe, obviously you'll need a larger bowl! The nutcake batter is considerably thicker than normal pancake batter; this is normal.

Spray or grease your griddle as before, then drop the batter onto the hot griddle in roughly 1/4-cup amounts. The recipe as given makes four small nutcakes, enough to feed one very hungry person or two people who are also having eggs or another dish alongside them. These cakes are tasty with maple syrup, but if you're avoiding all sweeteners, as I do, they are particularly good with unsweetened apple butter!

Enjoy!