Still in January and surfing on the wave of the vegan trend, I made a vegan version of one of my favourite brunch item: Pancakes!🥞

I have been playing around substituting ingredients in my baking recently to make things vegan and today, I have been trying a popular egg replacement: chia seeds in water!

I was not too sure about it to start with as I was worried it would affect the flavour and the texture of my baked goods but once blended, you can’t really taste the seeds as it does not have a particular flavour.

Those pancakes are deliciously moist and puffed up nicely during the cooking process, they also have the advantage to be gluten free and lactose free so everything I look for in a pancake!

Here’s how I made them:

My vegan berry pancakes 🥞 (GF, Lactose free)

Servings: 3 portions

Time required: 25 minutes (+1h soaking time for the chia seeds)

Equipment required: Blender (I use my Ninja food blender)

Ingredients

• 3 tbsp of chia seeds
• 1 cup of GF oats
• 1 cup of oat milk
• 1 tsp of baking powder
• 3 tbsp maple syrup
• 200g raspberries
• 150g blueberries
• 1/2 lemon juice
• Cooking oil spray
• Coconut yogurt to serve

Instructions

1. Mix the chia seeds with 10 tbsp of water, stir and leave to swell for at least an hour
2. In a blender, add the chia seeds, oats, oat milk, baking powder, 1 cup of raspberries and 2 tbsp of maple syrup
3. Blend for 30 seconds until you get a smooth batter
4. On a hot pan, spray some cooking oil then pour circles of batter making sure to not overcrowd the pan (I made mine 8cm diameter but you can make them bigger if you want!)
5. Once some bubbles starts to appear on the surface and the edge looks cooked, flipped then with a spatula
6. Cook them until golden brown on both sides then reserve on a plate and repeat with the remaining batter
7. Once you finish cooking all the pancakes, lower the heat then add most of the berries in the pan alongside 1 tbsp of maple syrup, 50mL of water and the lemon juice
8. Cook the fruits until soft and the sauce looks syrupy
9. Stack up the pancakes high on a plate, add a dollop of yogurt, some berry sauce and extra fresh berries on top
10. Enjoy!

You can also skip the berries in the batter if you want to make them plain then serve them with maple syrup or any other toppings of your choosing!

Happy brunch time!x