Easy to make, healthy chocolate pancakes made without eggs. My vegan chocolate pancakes are made with gluten free flour, plant-based milk and only a small amount of sugar.
Why make this recipe?
- Light & easy to digest pancakes
- Nutritious & full of fibre
- Perfect pancake option if you don’t have any eggs
Any specialist equipment needed?
Any frying pan, skillet or crepes pan will do, but I’ve recently bought 4 pancakes frying pan and love how easy it’s to use it. The pancakes always come out the same size, they cook the same time and they are also a bit thicker as the batter doesn’t run out (which is what normally happens when I use other frying pans).
Ingredients & Possible Substitutions
Cocoa powder
A good quality cocoa powder is quite essential for this recipe, but if you don’t have any, you can melt down any chocolate bar, use a hot chocolate drink powder, baking chocolate, chocolate chips or carob powder.
Flour
I choose to make this recipe gluten free, but you are welcome to swap the flour for normal plain flour if you wish (you won’t need to use the xanthan gum if you do). I find that gluten free flour is much lighter than regular flour, so you might need to add a little bit less and then adjust the milk to get the right consistency.
Chocolate is particularly good with any kind of wholemeal or nutty king of flours, like buckwheat or spelt. Try to mix them together with plain white flour to get a deeper flavour for your pancakes.
Milk
Since we are making these chocolate pancakes vegan, I’ve use dairy-free milk, but you are welcome to use any milk (or water) you have available. The proportions won’t change, but the taste might alter slightly. For example full-fat coconut milk will add extra flavour to your pancakes, but that’s part of the fun!
Xanthan gum
Only use xanthan gum if you are using gluten free flour, as gum helps to keep everything together (it replaces gluten in flour). Some gluten-free flours are already pre-mixed with xantham gum, so there is no need to any any.
Oil
Since we are not using egg, butter or egg, butter replacement in this recipe, it’s quite important to add something that makes the pancakes moist. Oil will do this perfectly and you are welcome to use any kind of oil you like – sunflower or coconut oil works well with this recipe.
Salt
Don’t skip the salt (unless for a health reason) as it helps with the flavour. You might find pancakes without salt a bit bland.
Aniseed
I was recently working on a recipe for gingerbread spice and since it included ground aniseed I got a rather large bag of it. It smells and taste like a liquorice (after all that’s how liquorice is made…) and I thought it would work well with my chocolate pancakes.
Feel free to leave the aniseed out or add a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg – both would work great with this recipe.
My top tips on making this recipe successfully the first time round
- Don’t skip the salt as it helps to bring the chocolate flavour out
- If you can’t taste the chocolate, add a 1/4 teaspoon of coffee granules, as they enhance the chocolate flavour too
- Keep an eye on these pancakes, as the colour doesn’t really help you to see clearly when they are done.
- Keep your frying pan/pancake pan on low to medium and turn them when you see bubbles on top and the surface starts to look dry
What can you serve with your chocolate pancakes?
- Raspberries
- Fresh figs
- Maple or Date Syrup
- Chocolate Spread (Vegan version)
- Peanut Butter (vegan version)
- Plant based soft cheese
- Any kind of jam or marmalade
- Plant based yoghurt
- Chopped up walnuts or other nuts
Can I scale up or down this recipe?
Yes, of course, you can. This recipe gives you about 8 small pancakes, which is a perfectly good portion for 2 adults or as a snack portion for 4 people. You can easily double the recipe if you are cooking for a family or want to make some pancakes and freeze them later.
Can these vegan chocolate pancakes be made in advance?
The oat pancakes are great served hot straight from the frying pan, but you can easily make them in advance and then reheat in the microwave or oven. They are also perfectly fine eaten cold.
You can make them in advance and freeze them for later.
How to store pancakes if you have any leftovers
Wrap and keep for up to 2-3 days in the fridge or freeze on the day you’ve made them. If frozen eat within 3 months.
How to re-heat your pancakes
Pancakes are perfectly eaten cold, but if you want to eat them warm, heat them up for few seconds in the microwave. Alternatively, if you have already oven on, you can put them in (covered) for 5 minutes or so.
This recipe and me
I was looking for a way of including my favourite ingredient – chocolate – into my favourite breakfast! The reason why this recipe is suitable for vegan diets is because I was saving the eggs for something else and because I’m not to good with dairy, so have mainly plant based (or dairy free milk) in the fridge.
When we were growing up, we had pancakes practically every weekend, because it was something we could easily make ourselves.
Quite often we run out of milk and eggs and I remember that often we had pancakes consisting of just water and flour. We used to call them ‘the waters’, but I guess they were more like softer tortilla wraps. But when you covered them with jam, they were delicious all the same!
By the way, that’s why I know that pancakes can be easily made with a lot fewer ingredients, that what most recipes use.
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Magdalena
Vegan chocolate pancakes
Equipment
- Pancake Frying Pan
Ingredients
- 100 grams gluten-free flour or plain flour (2/3 cups)
- 150 ml plant based milk
- 1 tablespoon caster sugar
- 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons sunflower oil or coconut or vegetable oil
- 1/4 teaspoon aniseed optional
- 1/4 teaspoon xantham gum
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- large pinch of salt
Instructions
- Add all the dry ingredients to a large mixing bowl – the sugar, salt, baking powder, xantham gum, gluten free flour, cocoa powder and aniseed (if using) – and mix everything together.
- Add the oil and plant based milk and briefly whisk to a thick batter.
- Pour the pancake batter on a low to medium heated frying pan and turn over when you get bubbles in the middle and the pancake start to look 'dry'. Keep an eye on these as they are dark in colour and more trickier to spot when you need to turn them.
- Serve hot with fresh fruit, melted chocolate, compote, dairy-free yoghurt and drizzle of honey or maple syrup.
Kat (The Baking Explorer) says
They look delicious, a perfect breakfast treat!
Cat | Curly's Cooking says
These look so lovely, fluffy and rich with chocolate. Delicious!
Sisley White says
I didn’t know pancake pans were a thing! I love it and I need to make these pancakes too! Thank you for a great recipe and for joining up to #CookBlogShare.