Fluffy Coconut Flour Pancakes
Edited to Add: You must check out the latest update on this recipe including tips and tricks.
When it comes to an easy breakfast I love pancakes. As you can probably tell from my soaked buckwheat pancakes and soaked, flour-free oatmeal pancakes. They are just so simple to cook – mix, ladle, flip, eat. No wonder our pioneer foremothers served them frequently on their trek out west.
But for those of us who don’t eat grains or are restricting our carbohydrates the smell of pancakes can feel a bit isolating. I’ve tried probably a half dozen coconut flour pancake recipes over the past year and have the same complaint with all of them – they are thin and eggy.
So I tweaked, tested, and tweaked again and finally came up with a pancake that is fluffy, not overly eggy, and pretty darn tasty.
My husband said these taste like donuts as he slathered them in coconut oil and honey. That’s coming from someone who does eat grains, is skeptical of coconut flour, and knows his way around a pancake. So when he said that I knew my recipe testing was over.
Finally, a coconut flour pancake worth eating.
Fluffly Coconut Flour Pancakes
Recipe Notes: Both cow and coconut milk work well in this recipe. You can also add cinnamon or fruit as desired. Just keep the pancakes small and watch them so they don’t burn.
Ingredients
- 4 eggs, room temperature
- 1 cup milk (raw cow’s or coconut both work)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon honey or a pinch of stevia
- 1/2 cup coconut flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- coconut oil or butter for frying
Directions
- Preheat griddle over medium-low heat. In a small bowl beat eggs until frothy, about two minutes. Mix in milk, vanilla, and honey or stevia.
- In a medium-sized bowl combine coconut flour, baking soda, and sea salt and whisk together. Stir wet mixture into dry until coconut flour is incorporated.
- Grease pan with butter or coconut oil. Ladle a few tablespoons of batter into pan for each pancake. Spread out slightly with the back of a spoon. The pancakes should be 2-3 inches in diameter and fairly thick. Cook for a few minutes on each side, until the tops dry out slightly and the bottoms start to brown. Flip and cook an additional 2-3 minutes.
- Serve hot with butter, coconut oil, honey, syrup, or fruit.
You can get coconut flour and coconut oil here:
For bulk orders of coconut oil we highly recommend:
I just tried to make a half recipe. Everything looked like it was supposed to until I tried to flip them. They didn’t bind at all, and so I sort of ended up with a pancake stirfry. I know that sometimes when you half or double a recipe it doesn’t come out right, so I’ll try again and make them according to specs. The flavor was good. The consistency was a little like a potato pancake.
@Kristy, I’ve made this recipe several times. It’s great for those carb cravings! I’ve found that after pouring the batter into the pan, I put a lid on it. It steams the pancake a little while browning so that it is far easier to flip! I made a double batch today and I’m tossing half in the freezer to see how it holds up!
@Kristy, you need to let the batter sit for 15 min until it gets thick. sometimes I sprinkle a little bit more coconut flour if it needs a little help. Once the batter is thick, there should be no problems flipping them.
suggestion, I use half and half instead of milk, and brown them on both sides and the stick them in the microwave, they hold together good and cook inside without turning too brown outside
I made these yesterday morning with coconut cream and they were awesome so light and fluffy everyone loved them they will be a regular breakfast in our house now
After reading the comments I wasn’t sure about using this recipe. I used Bob’s Red Mill Organic Coconut Flour, Thai coconut milk, 2-3 tbsp raw sugar (sometimes honey browns too quickly), 1/2 tsp baking soda and used butter for frying. I used a hand mixer at medium speed to froth the eggs. Add the liquid to the flour mixture slowly while whisking. The mixture was very thick and I thinned it out by whisking in 1 tbsp of cow milk until I got the desired consistency which was about 5 tbsp total. Came out great! (Readers have to realize that these will not come out like normal pancakes – just a tiny bit mealy.) The mixture is slightly thick but I used a ladle to spread it out into a circle. My picky 11-yr old actually ate 3 pancakes. When he heard me say they were coconut pancakes he said, “What?! Ewww.” Then he said, “I’m kidding they were good.” My other son said you have to eat these with syrup.
Great recipe…I tried to give it a bit more body though:
I added 1/4 c buckwheat flour and 1/4 cup heavy cream;
Changed baking soda to 1/4 tsp baking soda and 3/4 tsp baking powder;
Separated the eggs into yolks and whites. Beat egg whites separately till stiff, and folded them into the batter.
The buckwheat flour gave the pancakes a bit more structure while the egg whites add lightness to the batter. Still delish!
These are delicious and taste a bit like macaroons! I do have suggestions, however. I agree that whipping the egg whites separately is a good thing but also I found it crucial to make the pancake small in size so they were easier to keep in one piece when flipping. I added a little extra vanilla and put some full fat vanilla yogurt stirred into the milk to make it extra creamy and rich. I really liked these and my husband LOVED them. Yum!
Delcious recipe! Seemed a bit salty the first time I made it, but still delicious. Gonna try to reduce the salt next time.
Hmm… I did not have much lunch with these this morning. Came out like weird crepes. A couple of things I suspect: I made my own coconut flour – possibly didn’t get it dried out all of the way so it didn’t absorb the egg&milk, and second I read wrong and mixed the dry into the wet. I did give the batter almost ten minutes to sit and thicken but it never did. I liked them still but my husband was not a fan, said they just tasted like egg. Anyone have troubleshooting tips?
These were really good! A different taste to what I am use to but still very tasty. I will try with bananas or blueberries next.
Liked these. Need to use 1/4 sea salt it was too salty and almond milk. We loved the cakieness. Next time I will use coconut milk & work it a bit more to get a little thinner but this recipe is a keeper!
Good recipe, came out fluffy as described (I did beat eggs well and let batter sit). A little too coconutty for me with coconut milk, next time I’ll try almond or cow.
The y traste amazing, the only problem was when the pancakes started crumbling when I flip them
I made these this morning and they were divine! Topped them with raspberry smash and it was like heaven on a plate 🙂
I used almond milk because that is what I had and it worked fine.
As for those who think it is too eggy… well, not sure what to say. Bottom line, when not using wheat or grains, you just aren’t going to get something with the exact same texture as the original thing. This is about finding a suitable alternative so as to have some kind of stuff we are accustomed to. If you don’t like the texture/taste… don’t make them again. Try something else! But just remember, very unlikely you will find an exact match anywhere.
Personally, I found these delightful. No, they are NOT the same texture/taste as my favorite Village Inn pancakes… but after having nothing but meat and vegetables for months because of my allergies, these were a really nice option.
Thanks for posting this. Definitely going to share with my other GF friends 🙂
These have a great flavor, what is your trick though to not get them so dark? I turned my burner on number 2 and they still got so dark.
Ok so I just wrote to you about the color, guess it doesn’t really matter because my five year old and two year old can’t stop eating them! Thank you for such a great recipe. The only change was I added enjoy life dairy free chocolate chips. Thanks again!
Really tasty but near impossible for me to turn
I think these are delicious. I substituted vanilla Greek yogurt for the milk and they were fantastic.
I have tried other coconut flour pancake recipes and this is our favorite. I have made them several times before and they came out great. This morning however they were quite flat. I saw on the “tips” section that that could be caused by too much milk, but I have always used the same amount of milk (it is raw cows milk, lots of cream in it). Could there be anything else I did wrong? I was thinking maybe I stirred it too much trying to get rid of the lumps in the batter. Could that do it? We did beat the eggs until they were frothy, but they may not have been completely room temperature, they were close to room temperature though. Any ideas? Thank you, Ellen
Thank you for this amazing recipe!
I found them still to be a bit gritty so I added one ripe banana, a tsp of cinnamon and a dash of nutmeg. It made 4 more pancakes than the original recipe. It reduced the fiber content by 25% per pancake. It tasted great without the grit.
could this recipe work using egg replacer? My son has allergies to egg and gluten.
Thanks,
Kristine
Finally! Pancakes that taste like…pancakes. Thank you for making me popular again around here!
I am vegan, so I substituted the eggs with the normal substitute I always use and they did not bind at all. I did my best to handle them gently and keep them together, it actually plated quite well, but they didn’t cook on the inside. I wish I could try making these with eggs, but that would defeat the purpose of trying to make a vegan pancake. Do you know a way to make them work without eggs? The recipe you made just looks so great!
@Elise, Mashed banana or pumpkin puree should work well as an egg substitute in these.
These are NOT good.
I made these this morning! Delicious! I used a half banana, added some coconut flakes and omitted the stevia! Perfect!
This was my first time ever making anything with coconut flour. The appearance and texture of the pancakes were fine but either I need to use honey rather than the pinch of stevia (Trader Darwin’s), or I am not too fond of the coconut flour taste.
I have wanted to find a great coconut flour recipe for a long time. My son and I have a wheat allergy.
I cook with coconut flour 3 to 4 times a week and could tell right off, just by reading the recipe that it didn’t call for enough flour.
I did however follow the directions to the tee and found I had a bowl of milk. Even though I used a mix-master.
I tried to cook the pancake liquid. I had very thin runny pancakes, to which I could not flip (just like other comments).
I had to add more coconut flour, approx. 3 rounded tablespoons. They were great. However, next time I will have to reduce the salt.
I made these this weekend, and they were fantastic! I followed the recipe to a tee and finished it with a homemade banana spread (in place of butter) and blueberry sauce. I’ll definitely make these again.
These are fabulous!! We just made them this morning and my whole family loved them. Thanks for the recipe 🙂
I made these pancakes for breakfast this morning. Definitely my first attempt at using coconut flour to make pancakes. I am not a fan of eggs so I used three eggs and a half of a banana. The pancakes were light, fluffy and good. I will make them again and definitely lower the temp on my gas stove to get that beautiful, golden color as shown in the photo above.
I just made these and they came out awesome! My only suggestion and slight alterations I made are:
1. Use about a 1/8-1/4 cup more coconut flour than suggested.
2. Use about half as much salt
3. LET THE BATTER SIT FOR about 10 min. before you use it.
4. Medium low heat is right. Otherwise the middle doesn’t cook through and I actually turned the heat down a tiny bit once I flipped them and covered the pan to help keep the heat in so they cooked through. They don’t cook as fast as regular pancakes so be patient.
THIS IS A FANTASTIC RECIPE! WAY TO GO!
About how many pancakes does this make?
@Melissa
This makes about 12 to 16 fluffy, medium-sized pancakes, & it easily feeds our family of four
does anyone know how many calories are in one pancake? That’s my question!