Fluffy and rich vegan chocolate strawberry pancakes for breakfast? Yes! These pancakes are stuffed with thinly sliced strawberries, spiced with Mexican cinnamon, and drizzled with maple syrup. They are one of our favorite pancakes in our house, and they are vegan and refined sugar-free.
My 7 yr. old asked me, very seriously the other day, if I could teach him how to cook. I replied with an enthusiastic: " Sure!", but the truth is I'm not sure. Of course he needs to learn how to cook, it's an invaluable life skill that will serve him well his whole life, but does he really need to learn now? What if he loves cooking? What if he loves cooking so much that he wants to be a chef? No!!!
The life of a chef is anything but easy. There's long hours of physically demanding work, and an incredible amount of pressure and stress. Not to mention the high cost of culinary school and the low pay. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, if I had to do it over again I would probably choose to go to culinary school once more, but sometimes I wonder if I should've chosen a career in tech or anything else for that matter. At the end of the day though, what career he chooses is not up to me.
So I decided to let him do something easy, like pancakes. I gathered all the ingredients for him, but he had to measure them out and do the hard work of mixing the batter. Pouring the batter into than pan and flipping the pancake was his favorite part, and after wiping down all the flour and cocoa powder that was sprinkled on the counter, he ran off to play legos like making pancakes in the morning was the most natural thing in the world. Before leaving though, he turned around and said, " Can we put the pancakes on Dora's Table?" So here they are, Tommy's vegan chocolate strawberry pancakes.
The Recipe: Vegan Chocolate Strawberry Pancakes
I have used a combination of whole wheat flour and all-purpose flour, but you can do use just one of them without a problem. If you are doing no-oil, substitute it for unsweetened apple sauce. Enjoy!
Vegan Chocolate Strawberry Pancakes
Ingredients
- 1 cup Almond milk, unsweetened
- 1 tbsp. Flaxseed, ground
- ¼ cup Maple syrup
- 2 tsp. Apple cider vinegar
- ½ cup Water
- 2 tbsp. Coconut oil (sub unsweetened apple sauce)
- 1 tsp. Vanilla extract
- ¾ cup All-purpose flour
- ¾ cup Whole wheat flour
- 3 ½ tsp. Baking powder
- ½ tsp. Salt, kosher
- 1 tsp. Ground Mexican cinnamon
- ⅓ cup Cocoa powder, unsweetened
- 1 cup Thinly sliced strawberries
Instructions
- In a small bowl combine the almond milk, ground flaxseed. Mix well, and let rest for 5 minutes.
- Add vinegar, water, vanilla extract, and oil (or applesauce) to the almond milk mixture. Whisk to incorporate.
- In a large bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and cocoa powder.
- Make a well in the center of the flour bowl and add liquid mixture. Whisk until a lumpy batter forms. Let rest for 10 min.
- To cook pancakes, heat a skillet to medium-low heat and grease lightly. Pour batter onto pan and place 3 strawberries on the pancake batter. Use a spoon to spread some of the batter on top of the strawberries to cover them. Let cook for about 3 min. or until fluffy and golden brown.
- Flip and cook pancake on other side for 3 more minutes.
- Repeat with the rest of the batter.
- Serve with maple syrup.
So amazing! The cocoa does give them a little taste that is salty, but the berries are heavenly cooked in. We ate with natural berry jam!!! Thanks Dora and Tommy.