What’s better than playing pancake jenga at 7:30 in the morning?
Oh you have a sweet pad in Hawaii? An all-expenses paid trip to Paris? You just won a lifetime supply of cheese? Well, I’ll see your pad/trip/cheese and raise you a stack of VEGAN pancake jenga at 7:30 in the morning.
I sense I’m still losing. Whatever. I was never good at poker.
You know what else I’m not good at? (Besides: sports, dressing myself and baking uncracked cheesecakes) Making lemon poppyseed pancakes. Over the course of my blog lifetime, I’ve tried making them at least five times. FLOPS, every single time. (If I’ve learned one thing from my many flops, it’s that any successful lemon poppyseed pancake is likely not vegan.) And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I’m only showing you how to make vegan pancakes two ways even though three types are pictured.
Luckily, this time around I cut my losses by making only one third of the recipe into lemon poppyseed (which were not fabulous). The other two thirds were life-alteringly delicious (at least if you’ve never had a vegan pancake before).
I think everyone should have a good vegan pancake recipe up their sleeve, firstly because being vegan is cool and secondly because we all have those times when we run out of eggs but pancakes MUST BE HAD.
Isa’s recipe for puffy pillow pancakes was a revolutionary catalyst in my pancake journey. It doesn’t really call for any odd ingredients (you can omit the flax if you don’t have it), yet it doesn’t use any eggs or butter and is totally fluffy and golden and delicious just like the real deal. It’s probably one of the first pancake recipes I featured on my blog (In fact, there’s probably a very old post featuring these somewhere that I don’t care for anyone to see) and to this day, it’s still one of my favorite pancake recipes.
Lately, I’ve been gravitating towards gluten-free recipes in an effort to get away from refined flour and sugar, but I wanted to share these with you because these are still really, really good vegan pancakes. Also I just wanted to make a towering stack of pancakes.
If you’ve ever doubted that a vegan pancake could be good, make these. It’s comfort food veganized! These are crazy fluffy, perfect PB&J material, and you should go try them right now!
Pancake Fridays: Basic Vegan Pancakes, 2 ways
Ingredients
- 1 cup almond milk or soy milk
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon ground flax seed
- 1.5 cups white whole wheat flour
- 3.5 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- ½ cup water or additional milk
- 3 tablespoons neutral oil or olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Add milk, vinegar and flax to a measuring cup and whisk to combine with a fork until slightly foamy.
- In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. Make a well in the center and pour in the milk mixture. Add the additional milk or water, oil and vanilla and use a fork to mix until just combined—you want a thick, lumpy batter.
- Preheat the pan over medium-low heat and let the batter rest for 5-10 minutes.
- Lightly coat the pan in oil. Make sure the pan is nice and hot before you add the batter (if it doesn’t seem hot enough, increase the heat to medium) or else run the risk of pale pancakes. Add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of batter for each pancake, and cook for about 4 minutes, until puffy. Flip the pancakes, adding a new coat of oil to the pan, and cook for another 3 minutes or so. Pancake should be about an inch thick, and golden brown.
- For pumpkin pancakes: swap maple syrup or brown sugar for the sugar, add ½ cup pumpkin instead of the additional water, and add 1 teaspoon cinnamon + dashes of nutmeg, ginger OR 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice. Batter will be VERY thick--I like them this way, but add additional milk if you want thinner pancakes.
Notes
Did you try this recipe?
Tag @thepancakeprincess on Instagram!More vegan pancakes:
Vegan Cookies ‘n Cream Pancakes: this same basic pancake batter, adapted for one of my favorite flavor combos ever! These are worth making those crumbly chocolate wafers from scratch (although you don’t have to).
Chocolate Cake Pancakes: A total jewel in my vegan pancake arsenal, I steadfastly pledge that these taste just like chocolate cake–but only if you drench it in the perfect amount of maple syrup (i.e. a lot).
Sweet Corn & Tomato Pancakes: Corn and tomato is possibly one of the heavenliest combos around. These grainy, corn-y pancakes are perfect with a tiny sprinkle of sugar on top.
Banana Buckwheat Pancakes: For when you want a big stack of good-for-you pancakes that taste fantastic! These have been eaten to rave reviews.
Sherry
Just made these and they were fabulous! Thank u!!
erika
Yay!! Glad you liked them and thanks for letting me know 🙂
luminousvegans
Oh my gosh, those cookies and cream pancakes look AMAZING!!!
Sarah
Hi! My first time on your site. Really enjoying it–and the possibilities with this pumpkin recipe! Love that you’re a Scandal watcher! We just got hooked a few weeks ago and were watching every night leading up to the season premiere. Now that we’re caught up, I miss the cast!
🙂 Sarah
erika
Thanks lady! OH YAY! I also got hooked on Scandal kind of late–halfway through the second season. I binged on it and then was so sad I had to wait for the third season!! But then my boyfriend just got hooked on it so we pretty much did the same thing as you guys leading up to he season 3 premiere! SO GOOD.
Sarah
So good 🙂 I need another show like it–have been thinking about checking out Suits (know anything about it?)
On another note, I loved seeing the kale smoothies you had going on during your detox period. I used to make very similar ones and then recently had to go off all sugar, sweeteners, and fruit(!) for a while. Not easy. Anyway, I thought that you’d appreciate the heroism involved in having a kale smoothy with no fruit (ah!) I discovered the magic of vanilla and carob. But I won’t lie–you can taste the kale. You can also taste just how noble you’re being 😉
Hope you’re having a great weekend!
Sarah
erika
Hmm I’ve heard of Suits–I’ll have to check it out! Unfortunately, none of the other shows I watch are quite up to par…Revenge, The Vampire Diaries, ANTM, New Girl, The Mindy Project, The Client List, to name a few…not nearly as intelligent as you can tell haha.
And WOW that is amazing heroism!!! I don’t think I could ever do a kale smoothie without fruit–that’s so impressive! Are you back on sugar now? Why did you have to cut it out? I really want to cut refined sugar out of mine, but it is TOUGH!
Hope you’re having a great weekend as well!
Sarah
Hey there 🙂 Yes, we’re Revenge and Vampire Diaries watchers (also Elementary and Person of Interest). Have you seen Veronica Mars? If not, you might just love it…
Thank you for appreciating my heroism ;)! I went off sugar to treat a possible case of mild candida. I’m now more relaxed about it (like when eating at a restaurant or at someone’s home). It’s so tricky focusing on what you don’t want to eat–then you end up focusing on it a lot! But it has been cool learning about foods I hadn’t really realized were sweet before…
🙂 Sarah
Laura Dembowski
Those are some fantastic looking vegan pancakes! So fluffy. That stack has me wanting pancakes for dinner.
afracooking
It might be evening, but man am I craving breakfast right now. These look fabulous!
Kelly
OMG, your sky high vegan pancakes look incredible Erika! They both look amazing but I would love a bite of those pumpkin buttermilk ones for breakfast 🙂 Yum and those action shots are making me drool!
erika
Thanks Kelly 🙂
Alex @ Brain, Body, Because
Ah, these look so good! And, yes, I definitely know what you mean about NEEDING pancakes, but you’re missing one or two ingredients (like eggs) but carry on anyway!
erika
Haha YES exactly!!
Kayle (The Cooking Actress)
bahahahaaa pancake jenga! You’re such a pancake genius!
erika
🙂
veganmiam
These pancakes look fantastic – that’s the kind of breakfast I am craving for during travels!
erika
Thanks Rika 🙂
Irina @ wandercrush
Awwwwwwsnap. That stack of precious little things… I’ve always had trouble with vegan-ifying pancakes without having them turn out to be gummy, but the cross-section photos are inspiring! I’ll have to try your recipe soon. Digggin’ the syrupy gif goodness.
Alicia
No way. These look to die for! Poppyseed?! I am so excited to try these 🙂
erika
Ah sadly the poppyseed was my least favorite 🙁 But I’m working on another version that will be up soon! 🙂
kylie @ immaeatthat
Umm those pumpkin pancakes…yes, please! And with a description like “puffy pillow pancakes”, how can I not make these?!
erika
I know. They are calling for you to make them!
CCU
I have never seen thicker pancakes than yours nor have I seen fluffier – truly you are the princess 😀
Cheers
CCU
Brandi
What happened with the lemon poppyseed ones? Can’t you just add lemon juice and poppyseed to the basic recipe? Or am I am airhead, lol?! I’ve never had them, so I don’t know. They look delicious! I have to agree good vegan pancakes are hard to come by, but to this day, I’ve never eaten a better pancake in my life than the Gingersnap ones I make, vegan or not! The ingredients are similar to this recipe, so I’m sure I’d love these! Need to try them with pumpkin 🙂
erika
That’s exactly what I tried, plus zest. They just tasted kind of off though–not a recipe I’d recommend for anyone to try! Ugh I have no idea what I’m doing wrong 🙁 I still need to try your gingersnap ones!
yummychunklet
What a great flip-book photo spread!
Shikha
I can’t handle any of this. Photos = outta this world. Pancakes = outta this world. You = outta this world.
erika
You = the best 🙂
Nancy @ gottagetbaked
Can I play pancake jenga WHILE I’m in Paris/Hawaii while sitting near my life-time supply of cheese? That would be perfection! That first photo, gah! Talk about a money shot. I wanted that glorious stack of impossibly thick ‘n fluffy pancakes to magically appear before me. I really need to learn to take action shots. I love seeing that pour of syrup flowing down. What was wrong with your lemon poppyseed pancakes? They look incredible so was something off with the taste? Nosy minds need to know!
erika
Hahaha now that you mention it, that does sound AMAZING. Okay so I just bought a tripod and it is the best EVER. That’s how I got the the action shots! I bought the one that Sally (SBA) recommends on her page and I love it so far. Ugh I don’t even know what was wrong with the lemon poppyseed exactly, they were just not quite right. I want them to taste EXACTLY like a lemon poppyseed muffin and they were oh so far from that!
Michelle
I’m skeptical of vegan pancakes, but I have to admit, these look delicious! Next time I’m out of egss, I’ll try them! 🙂
erika
Yay! I really think you’ll hardly be able to tell the difference from non-vegan ones!