EASY VEGAN PANCAKES
There are countless food blogs on the internet, but few create content that’s unforgettable, content that is visually stunning as well as insanely inspiring. One of those blogs is Beth Kirby’s Local Milk Blog, which is one of the most influential food blogs I know. In fact, Beth’s content played a big part in my decision to pursue a career in food photography and styling and I’m therefore SO chuffed that she asked me to create a guest post for her audience as well as for you of course!
UPDATE! Please know that since Beth’s unexpected passing her blog is sadly no longer active. To get a sense of Beth and her work, please do check out my interview with her HERE. The recipe for these pancakes can now be found below.
I wanted to keep things easy, uncomplicated and down to earth to reflect the state of the world, what my family is craving and what felt right in my soul (and belly) for these crazy, turbulent times. With the restraints of quarantine cooking at the forefront of my mind, I developed an easy breakfast recipe that is family friendly, perfect for batch cooking and freezing, affordable and accessible, vegan and perfect for a lazy Sunday morning (or lazy midweek afternoon as the case may be ;)).
EASY VEGAN PANCAKE RECIPE with ROASTED RHUBARB
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes (see below for time saving tips!)
Servings: 14
INGREDIENTS FOR THE PANCAKES
2 cups self raising flour (see below for substitutions)
1/4 cup rolled oats
2 tbs brown sugar
a pinch of salt
1 tbs ground flax seeds
3 tbs vegetable oil (plus extra for greasing the frying pan)
1 cup (plant-based) mylk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
INGREDIENTS FOR THE RHUBARB
600g rhubarb, washed, trimmed and cut into small-ish pieces
1 cup brown sugar
1 vanilla pod
TO SERVE (OPTIONAL)
Maple syrup
soya yoghurt
granola
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat the oven to 360F/180C. Open the vanilla pod with a knife, scrape out the vanilla seeds and combine them with the sugar. Place the rhubarb in a deep oven-safe dish together with the vanilla sugar and mix until the sugar covers all the rhubarb pieces evenly. Place the rhubarb into the oven and roast for 20 minutes. Once done, allow it to cool whilst you finish making the pancakes.
While the rhubarb is roasting in the oven, combine the dry pancake ingredients (flour, oats, sugar, salt, ground flax seeds) in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, combine the wet pancake ingredients (mylk, oil, vinegar). Then pour the wet ingredient into the bowl with the dry ingredients and combine, ensuring the batter is free of lumps without ovemixing!
Heat a small pancake pan over a medium heat, add some oil to the pan when it's hot. Then pour about 1/4 of a cup of the pancake batter into the pan. When bubbles form on top of the pancake and the bottom side looks golden brown, carefully flip the pancake over and brown the other side. Repeat until all the batter has been used.
Once the pancakes are done, serve immediately and top with the roasted rhubarb and some maple syrup, yoghurt and granola if you wish.
Tip 1: To speed up the pancake making process, consider getting a pan where you can fry multiple little pancakes at a time.
Tip 2: Haven't got self-raising flour to hand? You can replace it with 2 cups all purpose flour, 3 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt.
Tip 3: The oats and the flax are there to add fibre to the pancakes and to make them more substantial. You can omit if you wish, but may need to slightly reduce the mylk content.
Tip 4: If you want to make these more fibre rich and intend to replace the white flour with wholemeal flour, only use 1.5 cups so as to obtain the right batter consistency.
Tip 5: I kept the recipe super simple to reflect what is in my pantry at this time, but feel free to add a pinch of ground cinnamon, ground ginger or a dash of vanilla extract to the batter if you wish.