it’s my favourite day of the year - pancake tuesday! i feel like i’ve posted about pancake tuesday on every internet place i’ve ever tried writing (which has been a lot of different internet places over the years).
but for good reason! i love pancakes. they are a perfect food. and today is a perfect excuse for a perfect food day!
i’ve been making pancakes almost every sunday throughout the pandemic, trying to perfect the perfect recipe. i’ve done sourdough ones, regular ones, crepes, sheet tray pancakes, dutch babies, banana ones, vegan ones. i’ve done ‘em all.
after LOTS of batches, we decided that vegan pancakes would be the recipe to really try and nail, because our whole family is lactose intolerant and also it’s just a more inclusive recipe to have down IMO. SO, after a lot of trial and error, i have landed on the perfect vegan pancake (in my family’s opinion). they’re thick and fluffy, fried in a little more oil than normal, and then doused in cinnamon sugar. they taste like doughnuts, and they are amazing.
if you want to, you can/absolutely should make these for dinner this evening.
very good vegan pancakes
(serves 2 parents and 2 kids)
tools:
baking pan
frying pan
bowls, mixing spoon/spatula, whisk, measuring cups/spoons
tongs, a spatula that flips stuff
ingredients:
1 ripe banana, mashed (omit if you don’t want banana pancakes)
1 cup milk (dealer’s choice - i swap between oat and almond, usually)
2 tbsp oil (use canola or something neutral if you have it, olive always works in a pinch)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups-ish flour (also dealer’s choice. go whole wheat if you wanna, or half and half. you do you!)
1 tbsp baking powder
big pinch of kosher salt
big pinch of cinnamon
method:
preheat your oven on it’s lowest possible temp and put a baking tray in there. create a warming zone for your cooked pancakes.
in a small bowl, mix like 1/4 cup of sugar with a couple teaspoons of cinnamon & create a cinnamon sugar landing zone. you will be coating your pancakes in this.
ok, so mash the banana, then whisk it together with the milk, oil, sugar and vanilla until it’s smooth-adjacent. it will be lumpy but you wanna try and get most of the bigger lumps out.
then add the dry ingredients. the flour, powder, salt, cinnamon. mix that all together until it’s all combined. it should be pretty thick and not very runny - like the consistency of doughnut batter. if it’s too thin, add just a little more flour (like, a tbsp).
get a pan going at med-high heat, with a decent amount of oil - you want to coat the bottom in oil so these fry up real good. then with a 1/4 cup scoop, just start frying your pancakes (i’d say go 2 at a time in a regular frying pan so you don’t crowd it). cook for like 3 ish minutes on side 1, until the little bubbles form & start cooking in the middle. then flip, cook for a few more minutes until they’re nice and golden. you want to give them enough time to cook all the way through so they’re fluffy - there’s nothing more disappointing than a gummy, undercooked vegan pancake.
then take them out of the oil with your tongs, and dunk immediately in the cinnamon sugar. coat on all sides & then add to the warming tray in the oven. repeat for all cakes.
serve with syrup.
thank me later.
pro tip: double the recipe! these freeze really well (sans the sugar coating) & make a really easy weekday breakfast. simply toast & enjoy.
happy pancake tuesday.
love,
kt.