Category: Breakfast

Savory Tomato Chickpea Flour Pancakes with Tomato Ginger Chutney

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Grain-free    &&    Low-fat    &&    Vegan

I can’t even try to pretend; I’m a bit obsessed with pancakes. These savory pancakes are the perfect excuse to have pancakes for lunch or dinner without feeling too weird about it (honestly, I wouldn’t judge either way). Like my breakfast pancakes, these are made with only chickpea flour, and are also secretly packed with shredded carrots. So there’s your protein and your vegetable, check and check! You can also change it up by using shredded zucchini, hearty greens, onions, or whatever you fancy, instead of, or in addition to, the carrots.

Instead of syrup, these are topped with a bright, flavorful tomato ginger chutney. If you’re not vegan, I’d also suggest adding a dollop of yogurt and/or an over-easy egg to these to really round out the meal.

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Savory Tomato Chickpea Flour Pancakes with Tomato Ginger Chutney

Adapted from Madhur Jaffrey’s Vegetarian India

Bits:

For the tomato ginger chutney:

  • 3-4 large (24 oz total) tomatoes, finely diced
  • 4 tsp peeled and minced (or grated) fresh ginger
  • 4 cloves garlic, peeled and finely minced
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1/2 tsp chili powder (such as cayenne)
  • 1 tsp whole yellow mustard seeds
  • 6-8 fresh curry leaves, finely chopped

For the pancakes:

  • 150 g chickpea flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp turmeric
  • 1/4 tsp rasam powder spice mix (substitute curry powder if you don’t have rasam)
  • 1/4 tsp garam masala
  • 1/8 tsp asafoetida (hing)
  • 1 1/4 cups water
  • 1 large tomato, finely diced (about 1 1/4 cups)
  • 1 cup diced onion
  • 1 jalapeño, finely diced (ribs and seeds discarded for milder heat)
  • Butter, ghee, or oil for greasing the pan

Algorithm:

  • Start by making the chutney:
    • Put a medium frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the mustard seeds and curry leaves.
    • When the mustard seeds begin to pop, add the remaining ingredients to the pan, and bring to a low simmer. Stir every minute or so for about 10 minutes, until some of the juices have evaporated off and the chutney has thickened slightly. Keep over low heat, stirring occasionally when needed, to keep warm.
  • Make the pancakes:
    • Preheat a large frying pan on the stove over medium heat.
    • Sift the chickpea flour into a bowl. Add the salt and spices through asafoetida, and stir to combine. Slowly add the water, mixing with a fork continuously to maintain a smooth consistency, until you have a thin, smooth batter.
    • Add the tomato, onion, and jalapeño to the batter and stir to mix.
    • When your frying pan is hot, add the minimal amount of low-fat butter to coat the bottom of the pan (or more if you can tolerate it in your diet). Use a 1/4 cup or 1/3 cup measuring cup to scoop the batter into separate blops in the frying pan to make the pancakes. Cook until the edges look dry and bubbles form on the surface of the pancakes before flipping the with a spatula; cook for two to three minutes on the other side. When done, remove the pancakes to a plate and set aside. Repeat with remaining batter
  • Top pancakes with the tomato ginger chutney. (If you’re not vegan, the pancakes and chutney are extra tasty with an added dollop of yogurt or topped with an egg!)

Chickpea Flour Dutch Baby Pancake

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Grain-free    &&     Very low fat    &&    Low sugar    &&    30 minutes or less

Need a delicious breakfast that won’t take all morning to make? I got ya covered!

The pancake obsession continues! In this installment, we make a single gigantic pan-sized pancake, which can provide a fun change-up from having many smaller buttermilk pancakes, for example. If you haven’t had a dutch baby before, I’d describe it as the cousin of a traditional pancake, but with a texture and taste that’s a bit more reminiscent of custard than bread. And, unlike smaller pancakes that must be made and flipped in many batches, requiring you to stand at the stove and pay attention for quite some time, this is a simple batter that comes together in one bowl, is poured into a large pan, and bakes in the oven for 15-20 minutes, during which time you can kick back and sip your morning coffee until it’s done.

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If you have had a dutch baby before, I will note that the product of this recipe won’t puff quite as much as a dutch baby made with traditional ingredients, but it will still taste just as custard-y and delicious.

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Chickpea Flour Dutch Baby Pancake

Makes one 12″ dutch baby pancake.

Special equipment: 12″ cast iron or stainless steel (oven-proof) frying pan. (Or use a 10″ skillet and one greased 8 oz ramekin)

Bits:

  • 135g (1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp egg whites (equivalent of 3 whole eggs)
  • 40g (2 Tbsp) roasted yam flesh / canned pumpkin
  • 1 cup low-fat / non-fat milk
  • 120g (1 cup) chickpea flour
  • 1/2 tsp fine-grain salt
  • 1 1/4 tsp vanilla
  • 1 Tbsp white sugar (or coconut sugar)
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp reduced fat butter for greasing (note: this adds less than 0.75 grams of fat per serving, and is pretty essential to preventing the dutch baby from sticking to the pan!)
  • Optional: fresh berries, date syrup, maple syrup, or a dusting of cinnamon and sugar, for topping

Algorithm:

  • Put a 12″ oven-proof frying pan in the oven, and preheat the oven with the pan in it to 450ºF.
  • While the oven is heating, in a medium mixing bowl, combine egg whites and yam (or canned pumpkin). If you’re using roasted yam flesh, for a more homogeneous consistency in your pancake, blend the egg and yam with an immersion blender until smooth. If you’re using canned pumpkin, just whisk with a fork until egg and pumpkin are combined.
  • Add chickpea flour to egg mixture and whisk with a fork until well combined. Add remaining ingredients except the reduced fat butter, and stir until well combined. You should have a thin, smooth batter.
  • When the oven has come up to temperature, remove the pan from the oven (be sure to use an oven mitt!). Drop in the butter, and swirl to evenly coat the pan. As soon as the pan is coated, quickly pour in the pancake batter, and place the pan back in the oven.
  • Bake for 15 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. Cut into wedges, top with fresh cut fruit, syrup, or a dusting of cinnamon and sugar, as desired. Enjoy!

Parsnip Date Hazelnut Chickpea Flour Loaf

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Grain-free    &&    Very low fat    &&    Slightly and naturally sweetened

This quick loaf coffee cake is perfect with a cup of tea or coffee. But, parsnips in a coffee cake you may ask? To which I’d reply, sure, it’s no stranger than putting carrots in a cake, which many would argue is much more delicious than strange. Parsnips are just another root vegetable, and they’re even carrot shaped, if that helps to put you more at ease. While maybe not be quite as sweet as carrots, they have a little more of an earthy, and almost creamy, flavor that’s hard to describe; well worth a try. Parsnips really have their heyday in fall when everyone starts to get excited about root vegetables, but like carrots, they seem to be available and delicious year round.

Made with 100% chickpea flour, it’s totally grain-free, and the only fat comes from the chickpea flour. It’s also sweetened only with a little bit of date syrup, making it pretty guilt-free for breakfast, brunch, lunch, tea, or dessert… you might even be able to pass it off as a dinner item; after all, chickpea flour is high in protein and parsnips are a vegetable. I say go for it!

For this loaf I recommend using a store-bought date syrup like The Date Lady‘s, which seems to be have a somewhat greater concentration of sweetness than the home-made stuff I’ve posted about (see my recipe for 110010 Birthday Cake for how to make your own date syrup. As the store-bought kind seems to be darker and a little sweeter, I have my suspicion that after blending the dates and water to make syrup, it’s probably cooked down a little to concentrate it; I need to do an experiment to check my hypothesis, and will be sure to  report back when I do. But unless you have time to do the experiment yourself, try to go with store-bought.)

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Parsnip Date Hazelnut Chickpea Flour Loaf

30 minutes prep time, 45-55 minutes bake time

Makes 1 9″x5″ standard-sized loaf

Bits:

    Dry:

  • 150 g chickpea flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • ¾ tsp salt
  • 1 ½ tsp pumpkin pie spice
  • 1 tsp ground fenugreek seed

    Wet:

  • 200 g grated parsnips (start with about 300 g / 2 large parsnips, then peel and grate to get 200 g)
  • ¼ cup (70g) roasted mashed garnet yam (or butternut squash)
  • 3 Tbsp (50 g) egg whites
  • ½ cup (125 g) nonfat greek yogurt
  • 1 Tbsp nonfat milk
  • 2 Tbsp (40 g) date syrup
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice
  • ¼ tsp vanilla extract
  • ½ tsp hazelnut extract (or omit and increase vanilla extract to ½ tsp)
  • ¼ tsp almond extract

Algorithm:

  • Line a 9”x5” standard size loaf pan with parchment paper. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
  • Combine dry ingredients in medium mixing bowl (sift chickpea flour as it tends to clump).
  • Grate parsnips, if not already grated, and measure out 200 g. Set aside.
  • Add wet ingredients except the parsnips in small mixing bowl and stir until pretty much smooth.
  • Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Fold with rubber spatula until almost combined.
  • Add the parsnips to the batter and fold until combined.
  • Bake 45-55 minutes until a toothpick inserted in center comes out *almost* clean. Check after 20 minutes and put a foil hat over the top to prevent dark spots.
  • Be a boring grown-up and clean up your mess while the loaf bakes.
  • Let cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove the loaf from the pan, unstick the parchment, and let cool completely on a wire rack (best if you can leave it for at least 45 minutes to an hour, if not longer) before wrapping it up and putting it away).

Keeps for 2 weeks tightly wrapped in plastic in the fridge. Also freezes fairly well, but texture may suffer a little.

Chickpea Flour Buttermilk Pancakes

Grain-free    &&    Very low fat

Fluffy buttermilk pancakes. Robot compatibility verified.

My pancakes don’t always come out picture-perfectly round, like so many pancakes you may see on the internet. Good thing you can’t taste shapes.

These pancakes are sort of where my fat-free, grain-free baking all began. When I had to cut out grains and fat from my diet because of my gastroparesis, obviously that had no affect on my weekend morning cravings for a warm fluffy stack of pancakes. I had a good recipe for chickpea flour buttermilk pancakes in my copy of the Chickpea Flour Cookbook by Camilla V. Saulsbury (check out her blog https://powerhungry.com/ for lots of great grain-free recipes!), but they contained more fat than I could tolerate as written. So I’d been making them just with the fat cut out, but they seemed to be dissatisfyingly dry; not really a surprise with the fat removed, but, I thought, what can you do? Right around then autumn was getting into full swing and to distract myself from the inevitable disappointment of the end of the summer berry season, I was amping myself up for all the delicious squashes and root vegetables just coming into season. I wanted to make pumpkin pancakes that came out as fluffy and delicious as the chickpea flour buttermilk pancakes I’d been making, but I couldn’t find a grain-free and low- or non-fat pumpkin pancake recipe anywhere (I knew that was a tall order), so I resolved to make one up myself.

That was when I discovered pumpkin, squash, and sweet potato are excellent stand-ins for the fat in a recipe! (Of course I wasn’t the first person in history to discover this, but it was a totally new concept to me, and seems to not be a super-well-known baking fact in general.) The pumpkin/squash/sweet potato (whatever you decide to use) makes these pancakes tender and moist, while keeping them enjoyably light and fluffy. At the time I was a little disappointed the pumpkin flavor didn’t really come through, but that keeps the flavor of these pancakes pretty classic and well-suited for any time of year!

strawberry maple pancake

Cooking pancakes seems so straightforward on the surface: pour batter into pre-heated pan, cook a couple minutes, flip, cook another minute, devour. Pretty much every pancake recipe I’ve seen is written that way. Maybe it’s just me and my obnoxiously persistent attention to detail, but there seems to be a lot more nuance to it than that. In the 13 years since I’ve been making pancakes (yes, apparently I needed to earn a college degree before I could embark on the journey of trial, error, and self-discovery that is pancake-making), I feel like I’ve learned a lot. For years my pancakes were flat and heavy (and that was with regular white flour and as much fat as a normal pancake recipe calls for). Finally my pancakes are actually something to be desired, and part of that is technique, so I figured I’d share a list of pancake-making tips that could have saved me years of floppy lifeless pancakes, if only I’d known! These tips apply to standard grainy/fatty/sugary pancakes the same as they do for my grain-free, no-added-fat, slightly-sweetened pancakes in the recipe below.

Pancake cooking tips:

  • Batter consistency is important. I saw many a recipe that said the batter should be between spoonable and pourable, whatever that means. A thicker batter will result in taller pancakes, but you risk burning the outsides of your pancakes waiting for the middle to cook through; if you turn down the heat to avoid burning anything, the shock of the heat won’t be strong enough to kick the leavener into action quickly, resulting in heavy pancakes with not much rise. Similarly, if your batter is too runny, there won’t be enough structure in the batter for the pancakes to hold together and rise tall; instead they’ll just spread, and might come out with a light texture, but they’ll be very flat. The way I’d describe the batter consistency that I’ve had luck with is “thick but still pourable”. Hopefully if you follow recipes as written, particularly if you weigh your ingredients, rather than measuring by volume, the batter consistency will come out right. I weigh my ingredients, but sometimes depending on the day of month and the phase of the moon, my batter will come out a little too dry or too wet, and will need some tweaking. Recognizing a good consistency comes with experience to some extent, but feel free to tweak your batter as you cook, if your pancakes are coming out too thick (add buttermilk) or too runny (add flour).
  • Pre-heat your pan while you make the batter! This will help your first batch come out right, and help ensure consistency between batches.
  • Pancakes are sensitive to the exact heat of the pan. Every pan and every stove is different, so it will just take some trial and error with your particular set up to know what the best heat is to cook your pancakes properly. Adjust as you go, if needed. Once you find the right heat setting, get out a fat sharpie, make a big mark on your stove dial, and label it in big, delicious letters “PANCAKES”, so you can find the right heat level again easily for future pancake-making (…not really).
  • The first batch in the pan is always wonky. Is it just me? Maybe. I think it may be the fact that the pans start clean and maybe don’t get coated with an invisible layer of oil/butter/pancake magic that seems to stick around after the first batch. Also, the first batch is really a test batch that you should use to gauge the heat of your pan on the stove and the consistency of your batter. Start with only one or two pancakes in the pan for your first batch, just to be safe and get that pancake magic in there, so your following batches will come out correctly and consistently.
  • Pancakes take more than the one to two minutes to cook than many recipes suggest they do. “Pancakes are so simple and only take a couple minutes to cook!” Hah. Disagree. That said, they shouldn’t take 10 minutes per side either… If they cook in one to two minutes I’d guess they’ll come out burnt on the outside and underdone in the middle, so turn the heat down. If they take 10 or more minutes to cook they’re going to be flat and you’re going to get very bored very fast, so turn the heat up. Set your expectations properly.
  • Wait until your pancake looks ready to flip before flipping it. This one’s probably the most useful tip. The tell-tale signs that a pancake is ready to flip are: 1. the edges of the pancake should look dry on the surface, and 2. little air bubbles should be rising up and popping on the surface in the middle of the pancake (which should not look as dry as the edges). Once you see both of these signs, flip away.
  • Pancakes that wrinkle when you try to flip them likely need more time to cook through on the inside before you try to slip the spatula between the pancake and the pan, even if the outside looks dry and cooked. I’ve found this to be an issue with chickpea flour pancakes in particular. This also brings back into focus the delicate issue of pan temperature; the inside needs to cook through without the outside burning, so if your pancakes wrinkle up when you try to flip them, maybe turn the heat down a hair and given the pancakes an extra minute to cook. But also, don’t worry about it too much; like I said, you can’t taste shapes.
  • Use two spatulas to lift your pancakes from the pan. Don’t be stubborn about trying to avoid getting extra utensils dirty. This also helps your pancakes not wrinkle.
  • Don’t keep your cooked pancakes in a warm oven while you make the rest. In my experience this just dries them out. If you really need to, re-heat any cold pancakes in the microwave for a few seconds; they’ll taste just as good as straight from the pan.
  • Note specific to chickpea flour pancakes: The inside of the pancake tends to firm and fluff up as it cools. If you try biting into a chickpea flour fresh off the skillet, it may seem a bit mushy and possibly even under-cooked. Give them a couple minutes to cool on a plate, and then the texture will be fluffy and amazing! (IMHO)

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Robot-compatible Chickpea flour Buttermilk Pancakes

Note: These pancakes freeze and reheat in the microwave pretty perfectly! I recommend making a huge batch and always having some in the freezer for instant pancake gratification. They’ll keep just fine in the fridge for at least a week too.

Makes about 17 pancakes with about a 5″ diameter (I use a not-quite-full 1/3 cup measure to scoop the batter)

Bits:

Dry:

Wet:

  • 144 g egg whites (or about 3 large eggs, if you don’t mind the fat from the eggs)
  • 325 g (about 1 1/4 cups) roasted and mashed pumpkin / winter squash / sweet potato (NOTE: Canned pumpkin will work too, in a pinch, but roasted pumpkin / squash / sweet potato will make a noticeably softer, fluffier pancake! My favorite is roasted red kuri squash, but I most frequently use roasted sweet potatoes as they are cheap and accessible year round.)
  • 2 cups low-fat buttermilk
  • 2 1/2 tsp sweetener of your choice (I have been using coconut palm sugar lately, because I have some to use up; brown sugar or white sugar will all work fine.)
  • 1 Tbsp + 1 tsp lemon juice
  • 1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Reduced-fat butter (it exists!) for greasing your pan, if your pan needs help to prevent sticking

Algorithm:

  • Preheat a large, ideally non-stick, frying pan on medium heat on the stove (see pancake-cooking tips above).
  • Sift flour into a large mixing bowl. Add remaining dry ingredients and stir to combine.
  • In a medium mixing bowl, combine wet ingredients except the butter. Stir together, mashing as needed to be sure the pumpkin/squash/sweet potato is smoothly mixed through.
  • Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients, and stir gently / fold vigorously with a rubber spatula until combined. Be sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl when mixing, to ensure there are no surprise pockets of dry ingredients.
  • Put reduced fat butter if needed into your frying pan in order to prevent sticking. Make sure the surface of the pan is coated evenly. The pan should be heated such that butter should sizzle, but not immediately brown when added to the pan.
  • Use a scoop (I use a 1/3 cup measure) to pour batter into pan. The pancake is ready to flip when the edges look dry, and air bubbles rise up and pop in the middle (see tips above). Flip and cook each pancake for another minute or two. The pancake is done when the spatula slides easily under the pancake and the bottom is golden brown.
  • Top with jam, fruit, or maple syrup, and enjoy!

Robot-Compatible Chickpea Flour Banana Bread

Grain-free    &&    Very Low Fat

Beep bop boop. Banana bread ready for ingest.

I developed this recipe to be grain-free, almost-non-fat (the only fat comes from the natural fat in the chickpea flour), and only lightly sweetened, in order to be compatible with my many dietary restrictions. The challenge, after taking grains, fat, and most of the sugar out of a baked good, is ending up with something that doesn’t taste like cardboard.

One (perhaps surprising) trick I learned through trial and error when baking with chickpea flour is that including some roasted mashed sweet potato helps keep the final product moist (though too much and it can become stodgy), while tempering the beany flavor that can sometimes come through with chickpea flour. The second trick I learned is specific to banana bread (thanks to the Banana Bread recipe on Serious Eats, which I recommend for humans with fewer dietary restrictions!): a banana’s characteristic flavor comes from a chemical compound called eugenol, which is also found in clove and nutmeg. So including those spices in banana bread actually amps up the banana flavor and the flavor of the spices themselves conveniently fade in into the background!

The result is, at least to me, a surprisingly tasty, moist and crumbly, satisfying substitute for a traditional banana bread. If you can handle it, I’m sure it’d be even better with lightly toasted pecans and/or chocolate chips mixed it. Otherwise, this is probably the healthiest banana bread you’ll actually enjoy eating!

(Helpful tip, if you don’t already know: If those bananas sitting on your kitchen counter start to get riper than you like to eat fresh, throw them straight into the freezer! They’ll keep just fine, frozen in the peel, until you’re ready to thaw them out and use them to make this banana bread!)

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Makes one 9″x5″ loaf

Prep time: 30 minutes, Bake time: 1 hour

Bits:

– Dry:

  • 1 1/4 cups (172 g) chickpea flour
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 3/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice (or 1/8 tsp nutmeg, 1/8 tsp cinnamon)
  • 1/4 tsp cloves

– Wet

  • 12 oz (340 g) peeled VERY ripe bananas (about 4 medium; from frozen is fine)
  • 2 Tbsp (41 g) roasted mashed garnet yam
  • 2 Tbsp (30 g) egg whites
  • 1/4 cup (75 g) nonfat greek yogurt
  • 1 Tbsp (20 g) date syrup (I use The Date Lady‘s)
  • 1 Tbsp (17 g) lemon juice
  • 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Algorithm:

  • Preheat oven to 350F. Line a 9”x5” loaf pan with parchment paper.
  • Sift chickpea flour into a large mixing bowl (don’t skip the sifting, chickpea flour tends to clump!). Add remaining dry ingredients and stir to combine.
  • Measure out and mash ripe bananas in a medium mixing bowl. Mash in the yam, stir until mostly homogeneous.
  • Combine wet ingredients except the yam and banana in small mixing bowl and stir with a hand mixer or whisk until pretty much smooth. Add the mashed banana and yam and stir to combine.
  • Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Fold/stir until combined.
  • Bake ~60 minutes. A wood skewer / toothpick inserted into the bread where it splits WILL NOT come out clean; it should have some wet crumbs stuck to it. Check after 20 minutes and put a foil hat over the top of the loaf if the top is starting to develop dark spots.
  • Remove from oven and let cool fully in loaf pan. Remove and slice only when cool!