Did you know that there are TONS of kinds of flours? There’s wheat flour – what most people refer to as “flour.” There are other grain flours like buckwheat flour, amaranth flour, spelt flour, and barley flour. Then you have more alternative flours like almond flour and coconut flour. Most of those you’ve probably heard of before though, but did you know there is such a thing as oat flour? Did you also know you can make delicious foods with oat flour? Foods such as oat bread and oat flour PANCAKES. Yes, Pancakes! You know what I mean, steaming hot, dripping with butter and oozing with syrup pancakes? Yep, those are the ones! Today, I made some delicious oat flour pancakes which my kids LOVED, and I’m going to share the recipe with you.
Why Use Oats to Make Pancakes?
There are a couple of reasons to use oats to make pancakes. First off, if you have someone in your house that has a gluten allergy, you can easily purchase gluten-free oats and make pancakes with them. This is generally a cheaper alternative than using a 1 to 1 gluten free flour baking blend.
Another reason that you may want to use oat flour in your pancakes is that it is higher in fiber than a lot of your other flours. You’ll get a better nutritional profile in general with oats to your normal white flour from the store and a better-textured product than many of the other flours that you might buy or grind yourself.
How Do You Make Flour?
Usually, flour is made by sending a grain through a grinder of some sort. In the case of wheat, you send the wheat berries through a grain grinder. You can also send corn kernels through a grain grinder.
Other flours are made differently. Coconut Flour and Almond flour are made by putting coconut or almonds and water through a blender blending them past a pulp and onto smithereens. Once you’ve achieved the smithereens stage, you strain the blender contents through a strainer lined with cheesecloth. The liquid becomes either coconut or almond milk. What’s left is then dehydrated and once it’s completely dry you send it through the blender again. This is now almond or coconut flour.
Fortunately, oat flour is even easier! To make oat flour, you simply put your oatmeal by itself through the blender (about 2 minutes) until they are blasted to a fine powder. It’s so simple! No straining. No dehydrating.
This is what it looks like once it’s been pulverized.
Oat Flour Pancakes – Makes Eight 6-7″ pancakes
2 C oats
1 tsp sugar
1 T baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp allspice
1 C milk
1 1/2 T melted coconut oil
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
Directions:
1.) Preheat your griddle.
2.) Blend your oats in the blender. You should come out with about 1 3/4 C oats when you’re done.
3.) Mix your dry ingredients together in a bowl.
4.) Melt your coconut oil. Beat your eggs together in a quart size canning jar or small bowl. Add the milk, vanilla, and melted coconut oil to the eggs.
5.) Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk until they are fully incorporated.
6.) Make pancakes using a scant 1/2 of batter.
7.) Slather with butter and syrup and serve.
Tips: (1)Don’t overcook your pancakes. Yep – I had to learn the hard way! If oat pancakes overcook they get dry and crumbly. My six-year-old is notorious for making a mess with the neatest of foods. Let’s just say, I’m glad we didn’t overcook his pancakes.
(2) If you double or triple this recipe, only grind about 2 C of oats in your blender at a time. If you put any more than that in, they won’t grind as finely.
What About You?
When was the last time you made conventional pancakes? Have you ever tried making pancakes with anything but store-bought flour? If you have oatmeal in your house, give this a try. It’s super quick to make. There’s minimal mess, and even my kids told me that they really liked them. Win – Win – Win!
Reading the recipe is good. Making the recipe is better! Remember, knowledge isn’t just knowing something. It’s living it!
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