In the four or so years since I first went vegan, I can count the number of weeks I've gone without eating a stack of pancakes on one hand. I really wish I was joking when I say this, but I'm not! The pancake life has well and truly ensnared me.
When I first went vegan I admit that I was still in the thralls of an eating disorder, but instead of restricting food in general (i.e. anorexia) I was now restricting my diet to only eating what I deemed to be 'healthy' or 'clean' foods (i.e. orthorexia). Refined sugar was a no-go, flour wasn't on the table unless it was gluten-free and fit into my idea of what was 'nutritious', and cocoa powder was the evil adversary of my beloved cacao powder. Luckily, I've now fully recovered from that disordered way of eating and I happily eat processed food and refined sugar pretty much every day, as well as takeaways a couple of times a month. No one's died, I haven't gained any weight (and who cares if I have, I'm cute either way) and I'm honestly happier than I've ever been. There is a point to all this rambling, I promise.
So, I was looking back through all my old recipes and wondering when I ever had the time/energy to come up with so many (being an adult is hard, guys), and noticed that a lot of my old pancake recipes are full of expensive, hard to find and also slightly pointless ingredients. I've been making my pancakes a bit differently in recent months, and to be honest they're so much better now.
I've learned a few things in my quest to create the perfect vegan pancake:
- 'real' (refined etc etc, blah blah) flour is way easier to use and cook with than buckwheat or rice flour, and it has a much better texture
- cocoa powder is tastier than cacao powder, sorry babes
- please use sugar, don't deprive your gorgeous lil' body of the good stuff
Hope you enjoy the recipes, my lovelies! Do let me know what you think of it and if you have any opinions on the whole orthorexia deal. It sucks to have an obsession with food dictate every part of your life, but it's good to get people talking about it so we can all try and help each other!