Fluffy Yummy Pancakes that You Won't Know are Dairy-Free

During the week it's rush, rush, rush in the mornings, but on weekends it's so nice to sit and relax with a hot breakfast and cup of tea.  One of our family favourite's would have to be pancakes.  We make the light fluffy American style pancakes rather than the thin European style.  After becoming dairy-free I would almost cry when I came downstairs to see my family eating pancakes, and I couldn't have any.  Well cry no more.  I have come up with a dairy-free version of pancakes that my whole family enjoys.

Jamie Oliver has a pancake recipe in his book The Ministry of Food, which is super easy to remember - 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of milk and 1 egg.  I like the idea of such a simple recipe that you can just make from memory without having to look up the recipe.  Mine is slightly more complicated, but still simple as there is only 1 of everything.

Ingredients:
1 cup of self-raising (self-rising) flour
1 egg (or I use an egg replacer - see notes)
1 cup of milk - I use almond milk
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1 teaspoon bi-carbonate of soda (baking soda)

Method:

The first step is to make buttermilk.  That is, soured milk.  To do this, add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar (or lemon juice) to your milk, and leave it for 10-15 minutes.  Meanwhile gently heat a frying pan so it's ready.

Place the flour and the extra bi-carb soda in a bowl.  Add the egg and the buttermilk and whisk together.

The batter will be quite runny.  I cook my pancakes in a 20cm/8" non-stick fry pan.  I find this size pan gives me a lovely round shaped pancake.  Make sure the pan is hot (med-high heat) before adding the batter.

Brush the pan with a little macadamia oil (or just use a good non-stick pan), then pour some batter in the pan.  I use a soup ladle which is about half a cup.

Cook until there are lots of bubbles on top of the pancake.  It will look like this

It is now ready to turn over.  This is the fun bit.  Lift the pancake up with a spatula and flip it over.  Sometimes I have a second bigger fry pan on the next burner and just turn the small fry pan upside down over the bigger fry pan.  That way I can start the second pancake while the first one is finishing.

Keep going until you have made all the pancakes.  You will get about 3-4 pancakes from this batter.  Using the soup ladle I get 3.  You can easily double the recipe - it woud just be 2 of everything.  Now top with your favourite pancake topping.

Personally, I can't go past fresh berries with maple syrup and a little icing sugar.

Delicious and you wouldn't know it was dairy free.

What is Maple Syrup?

Maple syrup is the sap from maple trees.  The trees are tapped in spring to remove the sap, which is heated to evaporate the water leaving a concentrated sucrose sap with no colouring or additives.  The Canadian provence of Quebec produces 75% of the world's maple syrup.  Store in the refrigerator once opened.  Beware of maple flavoured syrups which are largely sugar (often high-fructose corn syrup) with added colour and flavourings.   You can learn more about maple syrup at Wikipedia here. 

What is Buttermilk?

Buttermilk used to be the liquid that came churning cream into butter.  Traditionally, to make butter, whole milk would be left to sit for a while so the cream would separate from the milk.  During this time, lactic acid bacteria would grow, fermenting the milk, and giving it a slightly tart, acidic taste. The cream would be churned into butter, and the remaining liquid was buttermilk.  Now buttermilk is made artificially by adding a cultured lactic acid bacteria to homogenized and pasteurized low-fat milk.

According to  Stephanie Alexander in The Cooks Companion, when you use buttermilk in place of milk in a recipe you should add half a teaspoon of bicarbonate soda for every cup of milk, to neutralise the acid in the buttermilk, so the cake/pancake will rise properly.  I've added a whole teaspoon of bicarb soda to this recipe so I get light and fluffy pancakes.

Egg Replacers
Where a recipe calls for eggs, try using:

• a commercial egg replacer
• 2 egg whites for every 1 egg
• 75ml oil or soy yoghurt for 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon ground flax seeds plus 3 tablespoons water
• 1 tablespoon cornflour plus 2 tablespoons of water

For a full list of egg replacement ideas see Chef In You here