Our daughter decided to avoid gluten and sugar for a month to support a friend doing the same thing. Within the first week, she noticed she didn’t feel fatigued as she had, yet dreading the idea this may be a new way of life for her. Flipping through the latest issue of Fine Cooking, a beautiful photo of Gluten-Free Buttermilk Pancakes caught my attention and since I want to support her desire to live healthier, I was set to try them. Folks, they are delicious. Really.
Pancakes are my husband’s favorite breakfast food. His response, once he got past the “Mmm” was, “Those are the best pancakes I’ve had in a long time, maybe ever.“ When our daughter’s friend tried them she asked, “How is this possible?” Evidently, other bread-type gluten-free products she had eaten for the past two weeks were like bricks. With some minor tweaks to the oils and sugar, we found a new standard for Buttermilk Pancakes—light, fluffy, flavorful Buttermilk Pancakes the whole family will enjoy. I put gluten-free in brackets to title this post because while it is good information, it is not the only reason to make this recipe.
Ingredients
- 1 cup brown rice flour
- 1/3 cup almond meal
- 1 tablespoons cornstarch
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 cup low-fat buttermilk
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon butter -- softened
- 1 tablespoons honey or 1/4 tsp. Stevia
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- coconut oil
- Pure maple syrup
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 200°F.
- In a large bowl, whisk the brown rice flour, almond meal, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt. In a medium bowl, whisk the buttermilk, eggs, butter, honey, and vanilla. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until combined.
- Coat a large nonstick griddle or skillet with coconut oil and heat over medium heat until hot. Working in batches, ladle 1/4 cup of the batter per pancake onto the griddle or skillet, leaving a few inches of space between each to allow for spreading. Cook until golden-brown on the bottom, 1 to 2 minutes. Flip and cook the pancakes until the other side is golden-brown, 1 to 2 minutes more.
- Transfer to a cooling rack set over a large baking sheet and keep warm in the oven. Apply more coconut oil between each batch as needed. Serve the pancakes with butter and pure maple syrup.
Note: I could not find brown rice flour at Whole Foods, but did find it at King Soopers health food section. Almond meal was available at both stores.
Shared on the following Blog Hops:
Real Food Whole Health Traditional Tuesdays
Healthy Home Economist Monday Mania
SS&GF Slightly Indulgent Tuesday
Hearth & Soul Blog Hop
Mom Trends Friday Food
I’ve never made gluten-free food before… but this recipe is tempting me to start!
What a great looking stack!
You discovered a great recipe. I think I need to lessen my sugar intake. I will try this one. Thanks for sharing.
Can’t wait to try these! I’ve been searching for nearly a year and haven’t found a gluten-free pancake I love yet.
Well, I made them again this morning with blueberries–oh, man, just so good. Let me know what you think when you try them.
Those look delicious! I usually make buckwheat pancakes, but I might have to mix it up a little.
These look great, and I love that these don’t use more than five types of flour! Do you think it’d be ok to omit the almonds or do they play quite an integral role?
Zo Zhou, I suspect the almond meal adds a depth of flavor and according to this site, http://www.foodsubs.com/Nutmeals.html it makes baked goods more moist. If you have a hard time finding it in stores, I understand it is easy to make at home with a food processor. Please let me know if you do make these without it and how they turn out, I always love to learn new things
Thanks for stopping by, I enjoyed browsing your blog too!
The pancakes look fantastic! I can’t wait to try this recipe.
Two of my children are gluten-intolerant and we have been blessed to have friends who have learned how to prepare gluten-free meals for when she visits. Two of the families have since had children who were told they need to avoid gluten. They felt that they were better prepared since they had already started playing with gluten-free recipes.
Thanks for sharing your recipe with the Hearth and Soul Hop.
Thanks, they are delicious. Honestly, they are better than any non-GF or soaked wheat pancake I’ve ever had. Hope you and your kids like them.
These pancakes sound lovely. Although my family are all able to eat gluten, I would love to make these. Not only do they look wonderful, but I am sure the almond meal would make them extra specially delicious! Thank you for sharing them with the Hearth and Soul blog hop.
Thanks, April, I had a save-error with this post so I may have accidentally shared this on Hearth and Soul twice, sorry about that if I did. My husband was telling a friend of mine about these pancakes saying, “he was ruined” because other (regular) pancakes he had while traveling for business were not as good. He and I are not gluten intolerant like our daughter (20), but these are my go-to recipe even when she’s not around for breakfast. Let me know how you like them!
I want to make pancakes when we go cottage, but couple friends can’t eat almonds. So is there any substitute to almond meal?
Sanna, I would use buckwheat flour instead of the almond meal. Also, I have found if the batter sits for a couple of minutes before you start cooking them, it fluffs better and you can avoid those first “trial” pancakes. Let me know how it turns out, okay.
Lovely! I’ll be passing this recipe along to a few friends, we have several that follow a GF diet.
Thanks for linking up to Friday Food on Momtrends.com!
These pancakes sound great Judy! If you end up continuing with gluten free recipes, you might want to consider trying Authentic Foods brand Superfine Rice Flour. It is available in many Whole Foods locations and they also sell from their own website. I always recommend their flour because it is milled much finer than many other brands, especially the rice flour. If you have tasted a grittiness in commercial gluten free prepared foods, it’s the rice flour.
If you would like to see more gluten free recipes that can also be prepared with “regular” flour, I’d love for you to check out my blog!
Hi Andrea, thanks so much for the flour recommendation, I always love to hear about what is working for other foodies. I know what you mean about the brown rice flour, however, in this particular recipe, there is absolutely no grittiness. I haven’t yet figured out what makes the brown rice flour work in this case, but it does. I rarely use it in other GF recipes for the very reason you mentioned. I’ve used sweet rice flour with success, as it does not have the grittiness some of the other flours can have. I will look for the Superfine Rice Flour you mentioned.