Gluten Free, Dairy Free Pancakes ? No problem

[Feedingmyintolerantchild]

I love a simple recipe. And in my opinion, the best foods are often those with fewest ingredients, so when my daughter Sophia requested pancakes the other day, I thought I should see if I could find a good GF/DF recipe.

Good old Doves Farm. They make the best (in my opinion) gluten free flour, always have interesting recipes on the pack and have a good website – and sure enough, they have a recipe for pancakes. dovesfarm.co.uk/recipes/glu...

I did think it would be and should be as simple as just swapping in the gluten free and dairy free ingredients, but I wanted to be sure, because my hunches with baking are not always correct. Sometimes with gluten free baking you need to add an extra ingredient to perform the magic to make it rise or stick together, e.g. xanthan gum.

Before we became a free from family, I never enjoyed baking. I find it is too much like science, which I was never very good at. It is so precise and there is definitely ‘chemistry’ going on, and if your measurements and combinations are wrong, as with any experiment, things can literally blow up in your face. With gluten and dairy free baking you have even more ‘science’ to deal with, so every so often, I find myself looking recipes up just to be sure. Even the professionals can get it wrong, as we discovered recently when we bought several loaves of Genius bread that were full of holes and totally unusable.

Anyway, here is the recipe and I am happy to report it worked brilliantly. It makes enough for about four large pancakes I would say. We didn’t need that many, so I kept the batter in the fridge overnight and we had pancakes for breakfast the next day. I am not sure if you are supposed to keep it or make it fresh every time. But it did work very well and didn’t poison us. The next time I made them I just halved the quantities and they were still perfect.

200g gluten free plain flour (I used Doves Farm – I also accidentally made a batch with their Self Raising flour and that was fine too!)

2 medium eggs

1 tbsp sunflower oil (I had run out, so used/melted a blob of the Pure Dairy Free Sunflower spread and it was fine)

500ml milk (I used Alpro Soya Almond milk – slightly sweet flavour that add a little extra something!)

Method

Put the flour and egg in a mixing bowl. Add the milk and whisk into a batter. The Doves Farm recipe says you should leave the batter to rest for an hour, but Sophia is impatient, so we just cooked it straight away and they were perfect. Heat the oil in a heavy based frying pan and add a good tablespoon of the batter and roll it round the pan to cover the surface. Cook till golden and then flip and cook the other side.

Sophia topped hers with the Antony Worrall Thompson chocolate spread mysupermarket.co.uk/#/sains...

– but I guess you could add any topping you like. So, another simple recipe to add to the gluten free, dairy free scrapbook and another favourite food is now back on the menu.

[Coeliacmum]

Thanks for this, will definitely try it out

[Feedingmyintolerantchild in reply to Coeliacmum]

Best of luck. They definitely worked better the second time when the batter had been in the fridge for a while. I seem to remember seeing a telly chef with ice cubes in a batter mix, think it is the icy cold hitting the super hot that gives the best result. Best wishes.x

[Hidden]

I love pancakes and just after I was diagnosed I saw this program on tv about desert nomads who were very poor and they roamed the deserts with their families and animals and their most valuable personal possession was a tagine and it showed this family in the middle of the desert make a fire and they cooked flat breads with just millet flour and water in their tagine and it made me think wow if they can do that over an open fire what can I do in my kitchen. So the next morning I made myself pancakes for breakfast and had them with honey and banana's. I made too much batter so I had fish n' chips for tea. I now see pancakes as fast food, so good for you for going to this trouble and I hope it inspires others as they look yummy.

If ever you are in Bristol you want to check out Bubalu fitness cafe as they serve gluten free crepes made with Doves farm flour all day and their fresh fruit salads... beats BK's and Mac D's any day!

bubalu.co.uk/food/

They do a 16'' crepe with a drink for under £4.00

[Feedingmyintolerantchild]

Thanks Jerry. I agree with you - the batter is versatile and nothing is quicker. Am now wondering how well it makes a yorkshire pudding. Will give it a go later and post the results! My children used to love them, so it will be a bit of fun if nothing else!

[1stgls]

I have to say I find Doves farm flour brilliant bake with I use it in all my buns and cakes with the same results as wheat flour----the only thing I do differently is that I whizz the batters longer in the food processor ( in my mind i believe this puts in more air for lift --butI I may be just trying to justify my madness lol)

[lucy1974]

im goin to def try this out tmorw thanks