Some recipes from the past:
Our kids like pancakes for breakfast, especially on weekends when we have a big meal before setting out on our day’s worth of adventures or chores. That was before two members of the family were diagnosed with sensitivities to eggs, which has required some new approaches to many foods (and breakfast especially). Simple substitutions to the original recipe didn’t work. They came out as more of a “porridge” – not bad by any means, and actually worthy of a little more experimenting as an oatmeal substitute, but certainly not pancakes. So it was time to try reworking things beyond substitutions to make a new, egg-free variety.
Gather Up:
- 2 tbsp flax seed meal
- 3/4 cup water, room temperature
- 2 tbsp grade B maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1/4 cup tapioca flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- coconut oil as needed for cooking
Combine the liquid ingredients in a medium bowl and mix. Combine the almond flour, tapioca flour, flax seed, and baking powder in a separate larger bowl and mix these. Next, add the liquid ingredients to the dry and mix well. You should have a batter that is slightly thick, but will still pour like a smoothie. You can add a little more water (a tablespoon at a time) if it is too thick.
Melt a half teaspoon of coconut oil in a skillet over medium-low heat. You’ll need to watch the temperature to ensure you’ve got just enough heat to cook these through without burning one side or the other. If you’re cooking too hot, they will be a bit doughy in the middle. Drop heaping spoonfuls of the batter into the pan to form “silver dollars” about 2″ in diameter.
Cook on the first side until they lift easily with the spatula and are golden brown, about two minutes. Flip and continue cooking one to two minutes longer until golden brown on the other side. Transfer to a plate…and use a clean spatula to beat back the mob trying to get at them before they are all cooked (this is where a big griddle would come in handy). Keep them warm before serving.
As an alternative, you can add in about a cup of fresh blueberries (frozen would work, but makes it difficult to get things to cook all the way through because they are so cold) and cook them up that way. Enjoy!
- 2 tbsp flax seed meal
- 3/4 cup water, room temperature
- 2 tbsp grade B maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 cup almond flour
- 1/4 cup tapioca flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- coconut oil as needed for cooking
- Combine the liquid ingredients in a medium bowl and mix.
- Combine the almond flour, tapioca flour, flax seed, and baking powder in a separate larger bowl and mix these.
- Add the liquid ingredients to the dry and mix well. You should have a batter that is slightly thick, but will still pour like a smoothie. You can add a little more water (a tablespoon at a time) if it is too thick.
- Melt a half teaspoon of coconut oil in a skillet over medium-low heat (cast iron works best for these).
- Drop heaping spoonfuls of the batter into the pan to form “silver dollars” about 2″ in diameter.
- Cook on the first side until they lift easily with the spatula and are golden brown, about two minutes.
- Flip and continue cooking one to two minutes longer until golden brown on the other side.
- Transfer to a plate and keep warm before serving. Work in batches, adding more coconut oil as needed to keep things from sticking.
Purely Primal 
I too have recently been diagnosed with egg sensitivity. Breakfasts have become quite the challenge since giving them up because I was a faithful eggs for breakfast consumer. I also have a sensitivity to almonds which has eliminated by blanched almond flour from my diet. I’ve tried making muffins with coconut flour and chia gel as an egg substitute, but they were a complete flop. Do you think flax is a better binder? Is the tapioca in this recipe used to aid in binding since there are no eggs? FYI, I have a friend that cannot tolerate chicken eggs, but she is fine with duck eggs.
Thanks,
Sharon
We had tried the original recipe simply substituting the flax and some water for the eggs, and ended up with a semi-sticky glob that was closer to oatmeal. Using a fair amount of tapioca flour (along with baking soda) seemed to be the trick needed to get these to work more like a regular pancake. Frankly, we simply don’t make things very often that require a “dough” or “batter” like you traditionally need eggs and flour for, so I’m far from the expert on what ingredients make better substitutes for those sort of things. It’s all about trial and error (and taking good mental notes) 🙂
Hi there- just tried this recipe..I REALLY liked the flavor- i just couldnt seem to get them to ‘cook’ in the middle. they seemed a bit doughy, didn’t quite have the same consistency of a ‘regular’ pancake. Maybe increasing the tapioca flour is what i should do next time. Thanks for sharing this! I needed something gluten-free, egg-free and ‘sugar’ free (no white/brown sugar). This went well enough i’d make them again! Thanks 😀
I made them over the campfire this weekend (no blender) and found that increasing both the water and the tapioca to get a little more runny batter made them cook perfectly on the cast iron griddle.
I want to make these, but can’t use the tapioca flour. Can you suggest a substitute?
You can also use arrowroot powder. We use that or tapioca flour in place of cornstarch. I would suggest having tapioca flour or arrowroot powder on hand as we use them quite a bit in recipes.
Hi,
I tried this recipe tonight. I substituted honey for maple syrup and cornstarch for tapioca flour. I was using a counter top griddle and they stuck horribly. Any ideas on how I might try this again? Thank you!
Sorry for the delayed response. We don’t use corn starch (don’t even have it in the house), so I’m not sure how much affect that may have in the consistency. However, I’m going to make a point to do a little testing in the next week or so and see what if I can more deliberately nail down some of the variables like heat, amount of oil used, etc. that may help.
Hello! I love this recipe and have made it several times. Thank you so much for sharing it!
Hi! I’m allergic to corn and was wondering if I could use baking soda instead of baking powder? Thank you!
In order to get past the corn starch (which is the unfortunate third ingredient in pretty much every commercially available baking powder – used to keep it from clumping/caking up), you can make your own using two parts cream of tartar and one part baking soda.