Last weekend I woke up with the grand idea of making blueberry pancakes and some savory tofu. So I turned to my trusty friend the internet once again for recipe advice. Pinterest turned up a bunch of gluten free versions, which I had no interest in. I was just looking for a good old fashioned simple recipe. The web provided me with this simple enough recipe Light and Fluffy Vegan Blueberry Pancakes, and I was off to the kitchen…
As it turned out, my tofu block wasn’t thawed yet, so that put an end to the idea of a savory side protein, but I was most excited to try the pancakes. I was using frozen blueberries, so I gave them a quick rinse to get the frost off.
Then I mixed up the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. It sounded like an awful lot of baking powder to me, but I use aluminum free kind, so I wasn’t too worried about it.
The only thing I subbed was flax milk for the soy milk. I used canola for the oil.
The batter came out really fluffy and bubbly from all the baking powder, and looked really promising!
So, the recipe had mentioned using a non-stick pan. In Florida, I had always kept a small non-stick around, just for pancakes. When we moved, it didn’t make the cut, as I saw that it had some wear to it despite being well cared for. I have one of these Le Creuset enameled, seasonable skillets though, which I love, and had always been curious if it could handle pancake duty. I gave it a whole bunch of butter in the hopes that it would work…
Sadly, it did not work. The one side came out okay, but after flipping, the second side stuck to the pan like crazy! We scraped up the pancake, split it, (tasted good!) and put on some shoes for an emergency trip to Target. I put the bowl of batter in the fridge to keep it away from the cats while we were gone.
Well, apparently there is this new thing called ceramic non-stick! I ended up getting a Green Pan brand, and they had an aluminum version with a plastic handle, and an anodized steel version with a metal handle, so I got the latter. Thomas ended up getting a waffle maker with the ceramic non-stick coating too. (I’ve always wanted a waffle iron!) Apparently this ceramic non-stick is the future! We haven’t tried the waffle iron yet, but I can tell you about the skillet.
This thing worked great! It’s so much lighter than my cast iron, and the metal handle stayed nice and cool. I forgot what it was like to be able to lift a skillet with one hand; it made it easy to flip! (Pancake pictured post flip!) Clean up was also a breeze!
The first pancake came out a bit crepe like. I was still getting the temperature right, and the batter seemed to have settled down while we were gone, and lost some of its fluffiness.
But then the subsequent ones came out much fluffier. Maybe the batter needed to be reactivated a bit? Hard to say, but after this the pancake going got much better!
Verdict:
After all was said and done, we had ourselves an excellent stack of blueberry pancakes by 5 pm, that we washed down with a couple of beers! 😉 This was definitely worth that surprise trip to Target, and I’m glad I’ll now have the means to make these babies whenever we like.
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Do you have a favorite pancake or waffle recipe to share? Leave it in the comments below!
You know, pancakes are not exactly nutrient-dense food though, and whether they are dubbed vegan or not does not change their nutrient density (especially with the flour, sugar, oil and additional processing involved). We would like to think of this is more as a food for celebration than anything. Definitely looks great though.
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Good thing I didn’t make any claims whatsoever about their nutritional value! This is a vegan blog, not a health food blog. There is a difference.
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And as Thomas stated in response, it’s healthy for the animals [that weren’t harmed in the making of these pancakes]. A more thorough read would’ve deciphered that I hadn’t made pancakes in 3 years. An even just slightly observant read would’ve noticed that we also ate breakfast at 5 pm, and washed it down with beer – not exactly health nuts over here. Please take your condescending food shaming elsewhere.
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I think that my favorite pancake recipe is relatively nutrient dense :). I love your recipe too! It looks super light and fluffy!
http://aveganwithaplan.com/2015/02/01/whole-spelt-pancakes/
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Thanks for the link! I know there are loads of healthier recipes available, that is just not what I was after on this particular day! 🙂
(I even found some dehydrated raw pancake recipes – 1 ingredient!)
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Old school pancakes rule! These look perfect. I’ve been seeing a lot of shredded potatoes and tofu going in waffles irons and making the raddest things I keep thinking of getting one but then groan at the thought of another kitchen device loading my counter and I think I’ll always chose a pancake over a waffle though. Love the new blog design 🙂
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we were just talking about crazy things we could put in the iron! stay tuned 🙂
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