EASY, entry-level, dairy-free, gluten-free Cinnamon-Swirl Pancakes with Maple Icing, made at HOME?!
Heck, yeah! Bring it ON!
In her gorgeous new cookbook Silvana’s Gluten-Free & Dairy-Free Kitchen: Timeless Favorites Transformed, Silvana Nardone, writer, editor, chef, baker, columnist, cooking instructor, food consultant, mom – to name a few of her awesome attributes, ponders opening a chain of gluten-free IHOP-style restaurants after creating and testing her first perfect pancake mix.
She seems to merely ponder, but I’m fairly serious: The world could benefit from such a place!
WHAT a great book of recipes! Yum, yum, yum!!!
If you are missing that fluffy, white, IHOP-style pancake, drizzled with melted butter and maple syrup, just-like-you-used-to-eat before “gluten-free, dairy-free”, then you’ve come to the right recipe. If you’ve been looking for great ideas on how to feed your newly diagnosed family meals reminiscent of a bygone era – the rest of the book is excellent, too! You will not regret making this book a new kitchen staple.
My daughter had been requesting proper gluten-free, dairy-free cinnamon rolls for A Very Long Time, so I started with Silvana’s entry-level version: “Cinnamon Swirl Pancakes with Maple Icing”. In a fantastic boon for our entire family, this single, mouth-watering recipe required me to make multiple items in preparation for the “culmination of sweetness” that are these incredible cinnamon roll pancakes: Homemade Almond Milk, Silvana’s Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour and Silvana’s Gluten-Free Pancake, Waffle and Biscuit Mix.
Was it worth spending the little extra time to prep? Heck yeah! Bonus for additional meals, too!
The Homemade Almond Milk is super easy – I first learned how to do this from Tess Masters in The Blender Girl Cookbook – another FAVORITE and must have addition to your kitchen. This recipe takes so little effort, you’d be amazed! With two minutes of preparation, an overnight soak and a quick blend/filter, you have an awesome Homemade Almond Milk that tastes insanely fresh, has no additives, definitely no carrageenan, and you can sweeten, flavor, if desired, or leave as is. Perfect!
Silvana’s Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour rocks. You can use this easy blend to make just about anything, sweet or savory! I’ve made amazing white fluffy pancakes, blueberry pancakes, cinnamon swirl pancakes and have plans for biscuits, waffles, beignets and more. Try it! You won’t regret spending the four and a half minutes it takes to weigh, measure and whisk. In addition, the beauty that is this cookbook is that you can customize your ingredient purchases to be as organic (or not) as you like. She even has an option for making it more “whole grain” – which I love.
Silvana’s Pancake, Waffle and Biscuit Mix is a fantastic blend based on the All-Purpose Mix, above. I had to read and re-read the directions multiple times – I actually emailed Silvana to clarify before blending. “Are you sure you want me to add the shortening to the dry flour mix and store it that way?” YES! Indeed, she’s right: it’s perfect! Those little bits of shortening are the secret to keeping the pancakes fluffy and full of beautiful AIR with a lovely texture that reminds me of Chicago breakfast joints in my 20s.
If you are looking for that perfect breakfast comfort food that is a fluffy, airy, melt-in-your-mouth pancake experience – this is the closest gluten-free, dairy-free mix I’ve found to achieving that old-fashioned buttermilk pancake experience! For those that are familiar with our line of mixes, yes, we also offer a pancake mix, but our Be Free Bakers Sugar-Free Ancient-Grain Pancake Mix is a completely different product for those serious whole grain, healthy moments. Some days, though, you just crave that old fashioned stack of fluffy cakes, topped with butter and maple syrup and maybe even chocolate chips – and Silvana’s Pancakes fit this bill perfectly!
The penultimate recipe, though, which inspired me to make all the others, was the Cinnamon Swirl Pancakes with Maple Icing. Holy Sweet Awesomeness!
While these incredible pancakes were definitively a DESSERT rather than simply breakfast, I have to admit we gobbled them down – at breakfast. In full disclosure, it was a Hobbit-style, second breakfast, after the eggs! What an absolute winner, especially with my daughter who could finally eat a true, gorgeous cinnamon-roll style treat. This pancake, frankly, was superior in flavor, texture and sweetness to a traditional cinnamon roll, as it didn’t have the cloyingly sweet heaviness that so often accompanies traditional cinnamon rolls. Serious gratitude here. I don’t think my daughter, nor my husband, even paused to breathe between stacks!
Thank you, Silvana Nardone, for a gorgeous addition to the world of gluten-free, dairy-free baking and cooking!
I will definitely and lovingly add your beautiful book to my gluten-free, dairy-free, ever-expanding cookbook repertoire.
Jennifer Ward
Be Free Bakers
Be Free 