Adventures in Alternative Cooking #3: Pancakes! (Semi Fail)

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Well, we had a good streak there, but today's pancakes -- in honor of Snow Day! No school! -- were a bit of a flop. I may have bitten off more than I can chew (pardon the pun) by endeavoring to make these a) gluten-free, b) vegan, and c) full of my normal yummy additions. They were quite stodgily dismal.

But to give Gluten-Free Bisquick its due, I think with a little culinary jiggerypokery, we may be able to fight the good pancake fight.

To be fair, we did not start off on the right foot. This little box here cost $6.49 a lb, whereas regular Bisquick is $1.56 a lb. The sticker shock was only worsened when I opened the box to find a baggie this size:

It's like one of those horrendously expensive tubes of moisturizer that ladies of a certain age begin to seriously consider. The ones that arrive in a box the size of your shampoo bottle, and by the time you've removed the cardboard, the inserts, and the plastic, you're left with something roughly the size of your pinky. That needs to be applied liberally five times a day.

I was further piqued by the instructions telling me that one cup of mix would be sufficient for a batch of pancakes, and estimating that there were approximately three cups of mix in the box. Bisquick optimistically say that there are 10 pancakes to the batch, Hmm -- perhaps silver dollar stylee?

Not to let thrifty prejudice get in the way of a potentially great Theron-friendly meal, I mixed the Bisquick with almond milk (as a milk substitute), and apple-sauce (as an egg substitute). I also added some cooked sweet potato.

Can you guess what happened? An 'orrible gloopy mess :-(

It had exactly the same consistency as the flour and water wallpaper paste that my primary school used to have us make papier mache with.

Not to be deterred, I fried one up:

How did I end up with a square pancake? I do not know. It was stodgy, unappealing, and -- for want of a better word -- glutenous. I noticed when spooning it into the pan, that the mixture didn't have the same self-levelling quality as regular bisquick; that it needed to be coaxed into a flat cake.

Not to be deterred, I thinned the pancake mixture with a little more almond milk, coaxed a second cake into a more round shape, and added some pretties.

Theron unsuspectingly took a bite, before asking "Mama, is this a POTATO pancake?" He returned to the edible pretties before valiantly eating half of the cake.

So the pancakes weren't a total failure, but I think they would be a lot lighter and less stodgy with the rising power of egg instead of the moistness of applesauce. Or perhaps not apple sauce AND sweet potato. This will be one thing I try again once my supply of egg replacer arrives.

(But not too often - I made three Theron sized pancakes out of 1 cup of mix. Nine pancakes for $6.49 plus the cost of other ingredients? Ouch.)

Onward!

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