amanda and i are on a biking kick right now. the weather is relatively cool here in houston, so we've come up with destinations that give us an excuse to get out on our bikes and explore various bike routes for getting around town. last week, we biked up to the heights to penzey's spices. amanda had been told it was a great place to check out for foodies, which she has declared that i now am. it really is a neat store and without quite yet being discerning connoisseurs of herbs and spices, we opted to just try some spice blends and see if it was worth the premium prices and going out of our way to come back and try more of their product line. we got a couple different rubs and a pumpkin pie spice blend that smelled just awesome. that's what brings me to the pancakes.
we hadn't tried doing much with our gluten-free flour yet, other than using it as a substitute for regular flour for pork schnitzel and chicken fried bacon (not bad, but just not the same). amanda was really excited about the idea of pumpkin spice pancakes, so i looked for a basic gluten-free pancake recipe online. i found this one, which seemed pretty straight forward and didn't use any ingredients i didn't have. i added a tsp of xanthum gum, which is supposed to make recipes using gluten-free flour a bit fluffier and more like recipes using regular flour. for the record, i used milk made from powdered milk, since we don't keep regular milk around, and i used canola oil instead of butter. i also added three tsp of the pumpkin spice mix to make them pumpkin spice pancakes.
i'm happy to say the result was fantastic. the texture wasn't quite like normal fluffy pancakes, but it was very pleasing; kinda doughy, almost like warm, chewy flatbread. the flavor was outstanding. the cinnamon and nutmeg in the spice blend is reminiscent of how i was taught to make french toast and the allspice, cloves, and other spices in the mix give it a really nice and very interesting flavor, obviously hinting towards pumpkin pie. this one is definitely going into our breakfast rotation and we may share it with the in-laws next time we're out in cypress. we also might mix up all the dry ingredients to bring with us and maybe make for my family up in massachusetts over thanksgiving.
here's the ingredient list as we made it:
2 cups of gluten-free flour (i just went with heaping cups instead of dirtying another measuring cup trying to get the extra 1/3)
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder (has corn starch, but we let it go)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthum gum
3 tsp pumpkin pie spice
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups of milk (made from powdered milk)
2 tbsp canola oil
1/2 tsp vanilla
Sounds interesting. I would assume that getting the pancake texture might be hard. You might consider a baked style pancake. I am not sure how that would change things, but it might be an improvement in texture.
ReplyDeleteYou might try separating the egg whites from the egg yolks and whipping the whites and then folding them into the batter. I do that for the low fat applesauce pancakes I make at home, and it makes them fluffier.
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