Ugg, Pancakes. I hate them, I love them, I need them. Seriously, I was just about ready to give up on gluten, dairy, egg, and soy free pancakes, that all of my family members could eat. I mean, how ridiculous does that even sound? For some reason, I grew more determined to master them with every effort. I think I've lost my mind. Sure, you see all these fancy pancake recipes on-line for gluten free pancakes, but none would suit my entire family. I have a husband with no known food issues, my daughter and I with cow milk issues, and our son with gluten, egg, and soy issues. How's a Mom to make our traditional Saturday breakfast of pancakes without having to make two or three different versions. I came up with an Oatflour Pancake Recipe that has became my old standby. It's great and the whole family will eat it. Then why on Earth would I go messing with it? Why was I spending this much time on pancakes, when I could be spending time with my kids? The answer simply is that I think it could be better and easier.
I always look at what flours all these fancy gluten free mixes use. I noticed that Sweet White Rice flour seems to be a favorite. Thinking of rice flour in general, I have become very disillusioned with brown rice flour bread and some pastas. I hate it. I think it's so overdone, everywhere. I think most people think that rice flour is the old standby. I think it's time to think outside of the ole rice flour box. My experience with it is that it's sticky and works best mixed as a complement to other heartier flours, like Oat or Millet. So why would I try the Sweet White Rice Flour? Well, I just hadn't worked with it yet. I felt as if I had to give rice flour one last try.
So, last Saturday I decided to mix up my Oatflour Pancake Recipe and instead of using the Oatflour, I used the Sweet White Rice flour, combined with brown rice flour. They completely flopped! I'm not just being picky, I mean they didn't and wouldn't cook through. I hate Sweet White Rice flour, I hate it, I hate it! Here's what they looked like at that point. I appologize for making the picture so incredibly large, I just had to get my point across to you that they were gross!
Both kids are jumping up and down, asking me for pancakes. "Mom, we are so hungry, our tummy hurts". I said, "Why don't you eat your fruit first and I'll have these pancakes done shortly." My daughter dramatically says, "Mom, I'm SO sick of eating gluten free pancakes. Could you please just make me some pancakes with wheat in them. I miss wheat pancakes!" As I toss the glob of disgusting sweet white rice flour pancakes in the trash, I start to feel bad. I decide to just get out the wheat flour and quickly make up some dairy free wheat pancakes for my daughter and husband and make my Oatflour Pancake Recipe for my son. Then I think all the flours and heat started to get to me. In my insanity I remembered that my good old Vitamix has a gluten free section with a recipe for Garbanzo Bean Flour Pancakes, so I thought I'd give those a try too. When everything is a mess and all the baking supplies are out, you might as well go ALL OUT!
Here is what my old standby no gluten, no egg, no soy, no cow milk Oatflour Pancakes look like. My son liked them, my daughter even liked them. She was thrilled to have the wheat pancakes that morning.
Here are the Garbanzo Bean Pancakes from the Vitamix recipe. No one in my family really liked these much, compared to my Oat pancakes and the wheat ones I was talked into making, except me. I thought they would work perfect for a savory dish. I actually used them for tacos when we ran out of corn tortillas. I could have made the batter thinner and had some sort of crepe or tortilla. I like Garbanzo bean flour for savory dishes, not in my baked goods. I know it's a popular flour to use in baked goods and I'm not saying that I never do it. I just prefer Garbanzo bean flour in savory dishes.
A whole week after my Pancake Hullabaloo, today, Saturday, the kids are asking for pancakes again. I'm short on time so I remind myself that my husband just bought me a case of the Bob's Redmill All Purpose Gluten Free Flour from Amazon Fresh. I thought I'd try making a recipe up with that, since I had it anyway. Here is what I came up with. I'm happy to say that my daughter, the one who was begging for wheat pancakes last Saturday, was telling me that she loved these and thought they tasted just like the wheat ones from last weekend. Wow! My son loved them, even my husband ate them. Yahoo!
So here it is, a nice, basic, allergy friendly pancake recipe for anytime. It doesn't even have any gums in it!
Easy Weekend Pancakes:
No gluten, dairy, eggs, soy, or nuts.
Ingredients:
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup milk of your choice ( I used Almond Milk) plus 1 tsp lemon juice (or apple cider vinegar) stirred.
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp flax meal
1 - 3 tbsp honey or unrefined sugar
2 tbsp vanilla ;-)
Directions:
In a measuring cup or directly in your blender or Vitamix, measure out your milk and add your lemon juice (or apple cider vinegar) to it and stir.
In your blender or Vitamix, add your flax meal do a quick blend with the milk, lemon juice, and flax. Add all of your liquid ingredients first and blend. Then add your dry ingredients.
Turn on your blender or Vitamix starting on low, then to high for 2 minutes or until well combined. Let batter sit while you get ready to cook the pancakes.
5.) Get your frying pan hot on medium heat. Add a bit of Earth Balance to the bottom of the pan and lightly wipe with a paper towel to evenly disperse on the bottom of the pan.
Pour pancake batter into the pan. You will start to see the pancake bubble and you will know that it's time to flip it over. Once on the other side, let it cook for a minute more. You'll get the hang of when they are done, just like with your old wheat pancakes, back in the day.
Enjoy!
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