Sunday 27 July 2014

Gluten free grain free almond meal pancakes

Grain free is the new gluten free.  Once it was enough not to have gluten but now a lot of people follow a paleo diet.  Not me.  I am just a vegetarian with the right recipe at the right time.  Vitasoy sent me Pete Evans' Healthy Every Day cookbook recently.  I have had my eye on the Almond and Berry pancakes for a while.  This morning Sylvia wanted pancakes but there were no bananas for our usual pancakes.  The moment had come.

It has been a big weekend so I can vouch for these being fairly easy once I worked out what frothy eggs looked like.  The recipe is not one I would make often as I rarely make anything with more than 3 eggs.  And I am a bit unreasonably cross at the recipe because I was tired enough to drop my lovely salt hog while grabbing it for a pinch of salt.  Argh!  I cut a few corners in serving mine with plum and raspberry jam rather than berries and honey.

As can be the case with gluten free baking, the pancakes were quite fragile when cooking.  They firmed up as they cooled.  They weren't at all fluffy like regular pancakes.  The best way I can describe the texture is like a flourless orange and almond cake.  Light and a little fragile when hot and quite sturdy when cooled.  Sylvia was not a fan but E and I enjoyed them.

The recipe suggested it would serve 2 but they were so dense that together we only got through almost 2 thirds.  Even so I was not too fussed about lunch when I headed off to a school working bee in the late morning.  I was still full from the pancakes.  We finally had lunch at 2.30.  I guess all the raking up the leaves finally caught up with me.  So while I can't see these pancakes being a regular, I would make them again, especially if we have gluten free guests for brunch.

Previously on Green Gourmet Giraffe:
One year ago: Mustardy cabbage pasta bake
Two years ago: MLLA Chickpea pizza base
Three years ago: Pumpkin cake for Dolly's tea party
Four years ago: Turkish Fig Pudding
Five years ago: Balancing Soup and Scones
Six years ago: Tabouli from the Tree
Seven years ago: Lasagne and the Boy Wizard

Gluten Free Almond Pancakes
lightly adapted from Pete Evan's Healthy Every Day
Makes about 12 medium pancakes - serves 3-4

4 eggs
1/2 cup soy milk
2 tbsp honey
200g almond meal
1 1/2 tbsp coconut flour
2 tsp baking powder
dash of cinnamon
pinch of salt
butter or margarine or coconut oil to grease frypan

Whisk eggs in a medium bowl for a few minutes until frothy.   Mix in milk and honey and give a good stir so that most of the honey dissolves.  Place the dry ingredients in a medium mixing bowl and pour in the egg mixture.  Stir to make a thick mixture (more like a loose paste than a regular pancake batter).

Heat a heavy bottomed frypan over medium heat.  Grease by rubbing about half a teaspoon of butter over the frypan (I used margarine).  Drop dessertspoonfuls of mixture onto the pan and spread a little with the back of the spoon.  Fry a few minutes until the mixture is a bit dry and when you check the other side it is golden brown.  Fry on the other side about a minute.  Eat warm with sweet topping of choice.  I liked jam.  E liked maple syrup.  Or cool to room temperature and eat for snacks with jam or honey.

On the Stereo:
American Roots, vol 2: Various Artists

Disclosure statement:  I received the cookbook free of charge as part of a giveaway.  All opinions are my own.

16 comments:

  1. oh no the poor salt hog!!! I hope it can be repaired! Looking at the recipe I'd think it could serve more than two, I'd have leftovers here too I think!

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    1. Thanks Veganopoulous - the salt hog is in too many pieces to put together (and in the bin) - I really loved it. I have put a few pancakes in the freezer so hope they keep well there.

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  2. I quite like almond-based cakes so imagine I would like these, although the idea of trying to be grain free and vegan makes my head hurt a little (although I know people do it!). I like grains enough to never really consider giving them up, and fortunately they seem to like me, but I'd love to try these for variety.

    I am sorry about the salt hog too!

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    1. Thanks Kari - did you see Ricki's recent post on being grain free and vegan - it was really interesting - http://www.rickiheller.com/2014/07/grain-free-vegan-an-oxymoron/ - I love my grains too - but it is nice to have a break sometimes. And I do love almond meal which was the clincher for me in this recipe.

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  3. You should try Ricki's Lemony Almond Pancakes. They're grain-free, vegan and also almond based (combined with chickpea flour if I remember correctly) but are quite light and fluffy :D

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    1. Thanks Emma - I have seen quite a few of Ricki's pancakes but these ones look great. I would much prefer to make pancakes without all those eggs.

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  4. Aw, Sylvia was the one who wanted pancakes in the first place! Tough life.

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    1. Thanks Hannah - Sylvia got the orange juice (which is why the oranges are in all the photos). She then decided on eating rice cakes instead of pancakes - which was fine while it was jam but I drew the line at maple syrup or lemon and sugar on rice cakes!!!!

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  5. "I am just a vegetarian with the right recipe at the right time." You should get that on a t-shirt! Are you familiar with Jessica Cox, the nutritionist? I follow her on instagram, she is pancake obsessed and the things she makes always look amazing. I have made her pancakes before and they were great, even though I'm not a big pancake fan.

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    1. Thanks Lucy - will let you know when I get out a range of Green Gourmet Giraffe t-shirts - maybe I could have one saying "Life is better with nut roast" :-) Had a quick look at Jessica Cox's pancakes - looks interesting - hadn't heard of her before. I love trying different pancakes but my experimenting is slowed down by Sylvia's insistence on only having the one pancake recipe - I manage to slip in a different recipe occasionally!

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  6. I like that it uses almond meal and coconut flour - makes them a little different.

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    1. Thanks Danielle - I love using almond meal but neglect my coconut flour too much as I don't understand it very well - I gather it made the batter quite thick - would be interesting to use coconut milk too to up the coconut flavour

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  7. They look good but I am not sure that I am sold on the texture. I like fluffy pancakes!

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    1. Thanks Cakelaw - Pete Evans warned that they burn easily and he was right but I love the tiger marking on pancakes rather than an even brown. And as for the texture, these might not be for you though if you did try them they are fluffier when really hot

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  8. Oh no, did your salt hog break? Mine is a bit beaten up I must admit! I do find a lot of GF pancakes quite delicate, like you can't really roll them up.

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    1. Thanks Lorraine - am really missing my salt hog - very hard to do a pinch of salt out of my table salt bottle that just had a small pouring hole :-( And yep these are not pancakes for rolling :-)

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