The (Gluten Free) Pancake Project: Pt. 4

      This pancake project has taken up most of the summer, but it has finally come to a close. The weird outcome of the experimentation was that now I like savory foods for breakfast. Before having to be gluten free, I really only liked parfaits, pancakes, French toast and waffles for breakfast. Anything savory such as eggs or sausage was more of a lunch food. If nothing else, this summer was great because it taught me how to like eggs (scrambled with veggies) which makes it a lot easier to go out to breakfast and still enjoy my food options. 

    I can happily report that, even though I do like savory breakfasts now, I finally have a yummy pancake recipe. Before that success occurred, there had been a couple of fails. One was just flat out terrible, and the other I didn't care for the taste. As much as I like trying new recipes, and am okay when things don't turn out as planned, it got frustrating as it seemed that every recipe wasn't working out for me. 

     The first recipe of these three that I tried are from A Girl Defloured. The pictures look so nice, and all of the reviews on Pinterest seemed positive so I figured I would give it a shot.  I have searched through so many recipes, and I figured that maybe the addition of xanthan gum was going to do the trick. Shocker, that was not the case.

      These are the worst looking pancakes that I made all summer. They were pale and thin. So thin actually, that the blueberries were twice as thick as a the pancakes. These pancakes were also gummy and gritty tasting at the same time. I am guessing the gummy texture was due to the xanthan gum, but I really have no idea. All I know is that I look one bite, and then threw the whole batch away. It was such a disappointment because it seemed like everyone else had been able to make this recipe work, so why not me? 

      The next time I decided to try gluten free pancakes again I was home alone, so I wanted to find a recipe that would make enough for one person. I could really only find paleo pancake recipes for one, but since I had just bought coconut flour, I figured why not try it out. I used The Little Honey Bee's Easy Peasy Grain Free Pancakes For One which involved almond flour, coconut flour and applesauce. I knew it wouldn't taste exact same as your typical pancake, but I wanted to try it anyways. 

     The pancake itself turned out really well. It was thick and fluffy, but it did take a while to cook. Even though these pancakes looked amazing, I didn't like the taste. I have decided that the taste and texture of paleo pancakes isn't for me. When I made these, I had forgotten that I had already tried Bob's Red Mill Paleo Pancake Mix and didn't like it. I think the problem is that I don't like the taste of too much almond flour. A little is fine, but not that much. If you enjoy paleo pancakes and almond flour, this might be a great recipe for you, but sadly it wasn't for me. 

     After the paleo pancake dissapoitnment, I continued to look around for more gluten free pancake recipes. I wanted to find ones that seemed different than the ones that I already tried. I stumbled across Fine Cooking's Gluten Free Buttermilk Pancakes one day and decided to try it for a couple of reasons. First of all, it is Fine Cooking. I trust their recipes, and the few reviews on these were very positive. Secondly, brown rice flour and almond flour is used instead of a gluten free flour blend.  This was the main reason that I tried this, I know almond flour can make something more tender. We also didn't have all of the ingridents for the other recipes so this was one of few choices for the day. 

      Well I sure am glad that we were out of different ingredients so this was the recipe that was tried. These pancakes were thick and perfectly fluffy. There was a slight almond flour taste, but I really like tasting a little bit, and it goes so well with maple syrup. This repine was also really easy to make, no need to whip eggs or do anything fancy. These were classic pancakes in the truest form. I would be happy to eat these again and again.
      Even though I have found some fantastic gluten free pancakes, I will probably continue to try out new recipes. I am always finding something new to try, but even if something is a mess, at least I know I will have these pancakes. Being gluten free can't stop me from enjoying my favorite foods, and pancakes are no exception to that.

Here are the other parts of this series.
The (Gluten Free) Pancake Project: Intro and Pt. 1
The (Gluten Free) Pancake Project: Pt. 2 
The (Gluten Free) Pancake Project: Pt. 3 

Do you have a gluten free pancake you like? 

xoxo,

Maddie