Unwritten fact: pancakes make the best memories. Ever. Every family has their set of pancake preferences and pancake traditions. Just hearing the word "pancake" conjures up visions of weekend mornings spent with family and friends and the comforting, familiar smell of something delicious wafting through the house.
Gluten-free pancakes are a major thing for me. I love them so hard that if I weren't vain about my waistline, there's a strong chance I'd eat a stack for all the meals. Sweet, savory, fruity, chocolate-y ... no matter the flavor, I'm all up in their griddle. My favorite lazy Saturday morning breakfast? You guessed it: gluten-free pancakes.
Recently, I began playing around with vegan pancakes. If you're familiar with vegan baking, you're aware of how easy it is to make a vegan egg. Simply whisking together ground flax meal with water and allowing it to sit for a few minutes creates a similar consistency to an egg, and allows you to make tasty vegan treats.
Mashing up a couple of ripe bananas and adding them to pancake batter is a great way of keeping your vegan pancakes moist and full of flavor. I used a gluten-free all-purpose flour for this silver dollar pancake recipe, but I have also used brown rice flour and a combination of almond meal and brown rice flour to make this very stack of hot cakes happen. Whatever your flour preference, you will surely achieve a delicious and satisfying pancake to add to your scrapbook of memories.
Now go. Go make your pancake memories!
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons ground flax seed
- 6 tablespoons water
- 1 ½ cups gluten-free all-purpose baking flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 large ripe bananas, mashed
- 1 cup almond milk
- 1 tablespoon maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon gluten-free vanilla extract
- Grapeseed or coconut oil for cooking
Instructions
- In a small bowl, whisk together the ground flax seed and water to make a flax egg. Allow this mixture to sit and thicken while you’re preparing the rest of the recipe, about 5 to 8 minutes.
- In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.
- In a separate bowl, whisk the mashed bananas, almond milk, maple syrup, and vanilla extract together.
- Add the flax mixture (flax egg) to the wet mixture and whisk to incorporate, then pour the wet mixture into the bowl with the dry mixture and stir to combine.
- Heat a pancake griddle or skillet to just above medium heat. Add enough oil to coat the surface.
- Measure about ⅛ cup of batter and pour it onto the hot griddle/skillet until you run out of room, being careful not to crowd your pancakes. Cook until several bubbles rise to the top of the pancake and the sides firm up.
- Flip the pancakes and continue cooking until they're cooked through, another minute or two.
- Repeat for remaining batter. Serve with sliced bananas, pure maple syrup, nut butters, jam, or your favorite pancake toppings.
Abby @ The Frosted Vegan says
I SO agree, pancakes make the best memories! I'm not usually a banana lover, but when they are in pancakes I'm so on board! : )
Julia Mueller says
Cheers to pancake memories! I can remember pancake breakfasts with much more clarity than cereal breakfasts, which says a lot considering I'm not a huge bk person to begin with 😉 And what is it about putting bananas inside pancakes that make the fruit 10 times more attractive? Amazing, huh? Hope you enjoy! xo
Suzanne @ hello, veggy! says
YUM! Beauuuutiful pictures Kirsten!
Courtney says
I used to make my daughter pancakes using flax too! Such a great alternative 🙂
Julia Mueller says
Amazing, itsn't it? Who would've thought that a little seed could do such marvelous things all while being packed with health benefits! 🙂
Rebecca @ Strength and Sunshine says
Perfection! I make pancakes every weekend 😉
Julia Mueller says
Yippyyyy! Pancake lovers unite! Let me know if you give these a go!!
Liz @ The Lemon Bowl says
I make pancakes so much now as a mom than ever before. They are so good for freezing. Love these!
Julia Mueller says
Pancakes are definitely kid-pleasers, no doubt about that! I ended up freezing half of this batch and they were great when they were re-heated - just needed a little bit of butter/syrup to perk them back up. 🙂
vegeTARAian says
These look perfect! Love the idea of a pancake without egg. Must try this at home.
Julia Mueller says
I like them because the flax adds more health benefits and you'd never be able to tell they're vegan. Let us know when you try them! 🙂
Cara's Healthy Cravings says
I agree with you on the pancakes and also feel the same way about pizza.
Every Friday night my family would always assemble and make pizza together, a long standing tradition that has been carried on, which I love to bits. I love how food is so entrenched with family, tradition, love etc.
Julia Mueller says
Oh how can I get in on the Friday night pizza-making fest? This sounds wonderful! Family food traditions are lots of fun..and it's always more about the family making valuable memories than the food, which I love because the food is just the added bonus-treat 😉 Have a great weekend, Cara!
Gretchen @ Two Healthy Kitchens says
You are totally right - pancakes are the best!! We actually love them for dinner … my kids love the irony of having breakfast foods for dinner! These look great - and I'm willing to give the flax egg another try if I can get pancakes that look like that! (My last go with the flax egg was a teeeeeny disaster!) Thanks for a great recipe!
Julia Mueller says
Oh yes, breakfast for dinner is the booooomb! The key to a good flax egg is having the right flax-to-water portion...too much water can lead to a flattened pancake. Thankfully, one of my friends who is a faaaaabulous baker gave me the 3 tbl water to 1 tbl flax meal ratio. I feel like that was the golden ticket! Let me know if you try the recipe!
Joanne says
I could eat pancakes for every meal and not get bored! But I feel like all that maple syrup would catch up to me someday. 😛 Love these fruit-full silver dollars! Perfect size for dunking in some syrup.
Julia Mueller says
You said it, girly! All that sugar can really make your relationship with your jeans suffer. It's too bad calories count. Because they do. Drat! 😉
Emma says
Do you think I can just totally replace the all purpose gf flour w/ brown rice flour in these? Would a certain combo of brown rice and almond flours work best? Those are what I have in my kitchen and I really want to make these this weekend!!
sassygirl says
my past experience is brown rice flour is too delicate to be used alone. that is, the pancakes fall or break apart
as you flip them. i like the combination of sorgham flour and millet flour with brown rice flour. the texture is awesome.
enjoy!
Julia Mueller says
Hi Emma, sorry I'm late in responding to this. I've used only brown rice flour for banana pancakes in the past, and it worked like a charm! Here's my recipe: http://www.theroastedroot.net/gluten-free-rice-flour-banana-pancakes/. < - - - I used eggs here, but if you want to keep the pancakes vegan, it's worth a try using flax eggs. I also do brown rice flour and almond flour mixed very frequently. I do equal parts brown rice flour and almond flour, or slightly more brown rice flour. Here's an example of a recipe with those two flours together: http://www.theroastedroot.net/strawberry-almond-flour-pancakes/ Let me know which recipe you try! Happy pancake-ing!
Emma says
I just went ahead and made this recipe with brown rice flour and they were good! A tiny bit weird but good. They actually stayed together fine too. I love the mashed banana in the batter rather than banana pieces. I think I will try one of those other recipes next weekend. Thanks!
Julia Mueller says
Did you try the brown rice flour recipe using vegan flax eggs or regular eggs? I'm curious to know how that recipe turns out using flax eggs, so I'll have to try that approach, myself this weekend. So glad you made them and thanks for letting me know!
Emma Juneau says
Oh, I just used the flax eggs, I followed this recipe exactly except with the brown rice flour. I think the flax egg worked fine. They were dense, and just a TINY bit bitter, which I thought was maybe the brown rice flour. But I liked them anyway!
jill conyers says
If I didn't have to go to work I would make these this morning. Yum!
Julia Mueller says
You and me both, Jill! I always look forward to weekend pancakes. Lazy Saturday morning pancakes + coffee is the best! 😀
Laura (Tutti Dolci) says
I love pancakes, what an adorable stack!
Julia Mueller says
Thanks Laura! They are definitely cute little guys...and perfect for the weekend 😀
Jennifer says
I thought these looked great, and tried to make them. Learn from me: Make sure your gluten free flour blend does not have xanthan gum in it. It will not end in delicious pancake bliss.
Julia Mueller says
Hmm....what ended up happening? I always just use Bob's Red Mill's GF AP flour and it worked great for the recipe.
Jennifer says
The xanthan gum and the flax seed work together to gum the batter up to more of a bread dough texture. I added a lot of extra almond milk trying to correct the consistency, but it always thickened back up almost immediately.
Bob's Red Mill GF AP flour doesn't have any xanthan gum in it. I was trying to avoid the beany flavor that sometimes has, and so I tried using Namaste Foods Gluten Free Perfect Flour blend. I didn't know there was xanthan gum in it, but I sure won't be forgetting now.
Julia Mueller says
I gotcha. I didn't realize xanthan gum and flax seed reacted to such a degree, and I'm glad you told me about this!! Sorry the pancakes didn't turn out so hot. I'll also make a mental note to avoid making vegan pancakes with xanthan flour blends. Fingers crossed the next batch turns out better for ya 🙂
Alexander says
Really good recipe. I need to try using maple syrup in my recipes too, a Tablespoon can't hurt and maple flavor definitely worth the calories 🙂 I might will proteinize these babies (with your permission, or with reference given), I really liked the name "Silver Dollar.."
Julia Mueller says
Hi Alexander, I'm glad you like the recipe! I only recently realized that the term Silver Dollar Pancakes is used for the small (non-flapjack) pancakes, and definitely think it's a cute and appropriate way of describing them. You're welcome to adapt the recipe if you link back to this post 🙂 Thanks for your interest!
Laura says
Just made these- my first attempt at GF pancakes! They were delicious! I used Trader Joe's GF All-Purpose flour (which has mostly brown rice flour and no xantham gum). Topped with banans and pecans and maple syrup. This is my go to pancake recipe now! Thank you!
Julia Mueller says
So happy to hear it, Laura! I have yet to try the TJ's GF AP Flour (<- how's that for acronyms ;), but will definitely do so now that I know it has the stamp of approval! Pecans sound like the perfect addition to this stack of pancakes and now I'm thinking I need to whip up a batch, myself. So glad you enjoyed the recipe and have a great weekend!
Erin @ Texanerin Baking says
Oooh. These look amazing! Such pretty pictures. 🙂
I have a thing with pancakes, too. I don't want one puny serving of two pancakes. I want a whole plate of 'em. And they have to be smothered in maple syrup! So I rarely make them. Sad story, right? 😉
Julia says
I hear ya, Erin! When it's pancake time, it's pancake time. Go big or go home. Game on! 😉 If they (who? they.) would replace pie-eating contests with pancake-eating contests, I guarantee we could do some serious damage. 😉
Mattia says
These look great! My GF flours include oat flour, almond meal/flour and coconut flour. Can I use a combination of these to replace the GF flour mix in the recipe?
Tina says
These are amazing! I shared them the other morning with my omnivore boyfriend, and he loved them, too. Plus the recipe is easy, comprehensible and I had everything in the kitchen already. They even turned out to look like in your pretty pics 🙂 Great recipe, thanks a lot for sharing!!!
Dana says
This was a spectacular recipe! I absolutely loved ,loved, loved them! Thank you for sharing this 🙂
Ann says
Horrible!!!The batter came out so thick that even after almost tripled the amount of milk,still couldn't pour it.Also,they stick like crazy!!!After a few attempts I had to throw away the whole thing.I'll stick with my buckwheat/brown rice flour blend (healthier too,no starches).
Audrey says
I actually TRIED these before commenting. They were tasty, but the texture is a lot different than other pancakes, they're chewier. Still good.
Alex says
Im pretty certain that 1 1/2 cups is way too much flour, is this a typo? I just wasted a bunch of ingredients.
Enya says
Do you think I could use coconut flour instead of the GF flour in the recipe? I have never used coconut flour before but I have some in the cupboard just crying out to be used. The only thing is I'm unsure of how it reacts as a flour, I've heard before that it has a very high absorption level, any tips for using it would be super 🙂
Kim says
My husband is gluten free, egg free, dairy free and corn free and these are the only pancakes I can make that the whole family will eat. Love this recipe! It's delicious and they love them every Saturday.
Amber says
Hi! I tried out your recipe today and I missed the mark somehow because they didn't come out how your pictures, description and reviews all depict. 🙁 I used a mix of flour 1 1/4 brown rice flour and 1/4 tapioca, flax, 2 big ripe frozen bananas, homemade coconut milk, and I had to add a bit more liquid(water) as the mixture was super thick. Is your finished mix very thick? I added a little bit more flour because the first batch didn't seem to "cook" or firm up. The final product was decent but still a bit mushy not as pancakey or delicious looking as the ones you show here, wondering where I need to adjust, maybe my bananas were too ripe?
Kiersten Frase says
Gluten-free flours can be really finicky; my guess would be the issue was your blend of flours. We tested this recipe with store-bought gluten-free all-purpose flour, so that's what I'd stick with for the recipe.