Gluten-Free Pancakes That Actually Taste Good

Gluten-free pancakesPawan and I have been slowly moving our family’s diet towards gluten free foods. It’s not easy, especially with family favorites such as Grandpa Pawan’s Olde Fasion Box-less Pancakes. On a whim, we threw together some ingredients that worked well for a previous gluten-free zucchini bread recipe. Could it work for pancakes? The results were serendipitous-ly awesome. Kids couldn’t notice the difference and we felt great we found a gluten-free option for such a gluten-heavy start to the day.

We needed a couple ingredients that we don’t normally use – things like xantham gum and tapioca flour that help create the “stretchy-ness” of gluten in normal recipes. But after creating this recipe, we’ll definitely be using them again.

The DRY:
1 cup brown rice flour
1/3 cup quinoa OR coconut flour (*see note 1 below)
3 tbsp tapioca flour (aka tapioca starch)
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp xantham gum
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt

The WET:
2 eggs yolks (the whites go in a separate bowl – trust me it’s worth it)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cup warm almond milk (*see note 2 below)
3 tbsp coconut oil
1 tsp lemon juice

The FLUFFY:
2 egg whites (separated from above)

Preheat your electric griddle to 250F or a pan on low-medium on your stove top. Combine all The DRY ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Make sure it’s large enough to accommodate all the other ingredients that we’ll add later. Set aside. In another bowl thoroughly mix all The WET ingredients together. Then pour the WET mixture in the bowl with The DRY ingredients and mix with a whisk. Set aside. In a small mixing bowl, whip up the egg whites with a hand mixer at until it becomes white and fluffy. You’ll know when it’s done once you stop the mixer, lift it out of the eggs, and you can see firm peaks. Here’s a video to show you what I mean.

Slowly put the whipped egg whites in with the big bowl that has the batter. You don’t want to over mix b/c you want to maintain all those bubbles. I like using a wooden spoon for this. Now you can pour it out on the griddle to make some yummy pancakes.

NOTE 1: Quinoa flour adds a nutty, slightly bitter flavor (like walnuts). Some like it, but if you don’t want that, you can use coconut flour.
NOTE 2: The milk has to be warm enough to melt the coconut oil (which usually solidifies at room temperature) but not so hot that it cooks the egg. (One minute in the microwave works for us.) If you use sweetened almond milk, you can reduce the sugar in The DRY ingredients to 1 tbsp.