Guest post from Michelle of The Willing Cook
Crystal shared a very popular freezer cooking challenge in May with “regular” food. However, a number of readers have requested allergy-friendly recipes as well.
That’s where I come in.
For the next three days, I’ll be sharing an allergy-friendly freezer cooking recipe each day. All three recipes will be free of the top eight allergens and more. Hopefully, this will help some of you who have food allergies and would like to do some freezer cooking, but who are struggling to come up with ideas as to what you can make with your dietary restrictions.
When Crystal linked to a Peanut Butter Pancake recipe recently in her meal plan, I knew I had to try it. I was so excited about the results using whole wheat flour and almond butter, that I decided I would make a gluten-free batch as soon as possible.
The successful and power-punching breakfast pancake recipe below is what resulted. We loved these!
Note: Any “nutty” spread can be used for this recipe, like sunbutter, and still be peanut and treenut free. You may wish to talk to your doctor before using sunbutter, but it is free of peanuts and treenuts. You can also try leaving out the nut butter from the recipe.
Nut Butter Pancake Recipe
(makes approximately 28, 4-inch pancakes)
Ingredients:
**See ingredient substitution notes below recipe.**
- 2 cups rice flour
- 1 cup oat flour (use certified gluten-free oat flour, if necessary)
- 1 cup tapioca flour
- 4 Tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt
- EnerG Egg Replacer for 4 eggs (6 tsp powder + 8 TBSP water)
- 2 cups milk (whatever is allowed)
- 1 cup nutty butter (Examples: sun butter, almond butter, cashew butter, peanut butter)
- 1/2 cup coconut oil
- (optional add-ins: berries, chocolate chips)
Directions:
- Mix together dry ingredients.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together EnerG Egg Replacer and water.
- Melt nut butter with coconut oil in a small pan over medium heat.
- Add egg replacer, milk, and nut butter/oil mixture to dry ingredients; mix until combined.
- Preheat griddle and pour pancake batter onto griddle about 4 inches in diameter.
- After pancakes have cooked for a minute or two, drop a few berries or chocolate chips onto each pancake (You can also mix the add-ins straight into the batter. My kids usually request a variety of add-ins, so I do it while the pancakes are cooking.).
- When edges are cooked/dry, flip over and cook for another minute or two.
- Enjoy warm with some delicious maple syrup!
To Freeze:
Place the pancakes in a single layer on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer for about 30 minutes, then move to a freezer bag. To reheat, simply pop the frozen pancake in the microwave for 30-60 seconds (or use a preheated oven/toaster oven).
Ingredient Substitutions:
You can add back in any “regular” ingredients for the allergy-friendly ingredients in this recipe.
Wheat: Use 4 cups whole wheat flour (in place of gluten-free flours).
Corn: Use 2 teaspoon baking powder (in place of cream of tartar and baking soda).
Egg: Use 4 eggs (in place of EnerG Egg Replacer).
Dairy: Use 1/2 cup butter (in place of coconut oil) or cow’s milk (in place of non-dairy milk).
Like I mentioned earlier, these pancakes are absolutely delicious — and our family loves them!
Michelle is blessed to stay home with her three children (ages 10, 7, and 4), while her husband works to provide. When she’s not experimenting with allergy-friendly meals, she’s blogging about it at The Willing Cook. Through the Willing Cook, her hope is that you gain peace of mind in your kitchen (and your pocket book) and are able to serve those you love who suffer with food allergies.
KC says
Thank you SO much for posting this and the mini series Michelle has started.
I LOVE moneysavingmom.com and read it every day. It has changed my life more than I can express, but the freezer cooking series was a bummer for me. It was difficult to participate with everyone since many of the recipes had ingredients I don’t use.
We don’t have food allergies, but we do a mostly gluten free diet. We rarely consume dairy, meat and almost no sugar. My food preferences and that fact that I wasn’t confident with food substitutions limited the # of meals I could make from her series. 🙁
Thank you Crystal for this guest post
Michelle @ Willing Cook says
KC,
Thank you for your kind support. I’m glad that I could help. I hope to bring you more such recipes again in the future.
Michelle
Kristen says
This is great! So glad for the series, Michelle!
Bria says
Mayo Clinic lists peanuts and tree nuts, separately, on their list of eight. We can’t follow many of Crystal’s recipes because of a nut allergy and would love truly nut free recipe ideas.
Michelle @ Willing Cook says
Bria,
Sunbutter (sunflower seed butter) is nut & peanut free. As long as you do not have a sunflower seed allergy, it should be an easy substitute. However, you should check with your doctor first to make sure sunbutter is safe. In the meantime, you could substitute 4 smashed bananas for the 1 cup of nut butter. I hope that helps!
Michelle
Kelly @ fru-gal.org says
Thank you for doing this!! Very helpful for us as we cook egg, nut, and dairy free, especially as I’m due for our 2nd baby in 2 weeks and have been trying to stock up the freezer! 🙂
Michelle @ Willing Cook says
Kelly,
Congratulations! I’m glad you found this helpful. I hope you were able to read the other comments regarding the issue with the nut butter ingredient. Sunbutter is treenut and peanut free, so as long as you don’t have an allergy to sunflower seeds, there should be no problem. The other thing I thought is that you can substitute smashed bananas for the nut butter — use 4 bananas for the 1 cup of nut butter.
Michelle
Kim says
Tree nuts and peanuts are both in the top 8 allergens, and 2 of the most likely to cause severe, life threatening reactions.
Michelle @ Willing Cook says
Kim,
Yes, they are! The list (sunflower seed, almond, cashew, peanut) beside the nut butter ingredient are examples of “nutty” butters that you can use. Sunbutter is free of treenuts and peanuts, but acts similarly. Hope that is helpful!
Michelle
Colleen M. says
Thank you so much for this post! Any recipe that is kid friendly, freezable, and free of the top 8 allergens puts a smile on my face. I can’t wait to make these for my family!
Cheri A says
Very cool!! I’ll be looking forward to this series! My daughter is gluten-free, as well as allergic to milk, eggs, soy, tree nuts, and peanuts. I *wish* she would try a recipe like this, but sunbutter scares her.
Going to check your site to see if you have just a plain pancake that I could make. 🙂
Michelle @ Willing Cook says
Cheri,
I can understand being scared of sunbutter! I would recommend still trying this recipe and leaving out the sunbutter. While it was a great binder to the gluten-free flours, I think the recipe would turn out just fine without the sunbutter. Hope that helps!
Michelle
Michelle @ Willing Cook says
Cheri,
I started thinking that you could also use 4 smashed bananas in place of the nut butter. That should work as a great substitute.
Michelle
Cheri A says
Thanks so much for the idea. I will try this! I also went over to your blog and browsed a bit. Loved your site. I will be back soon!
Melissa says
Hoping to get some new allergy friendly freezer meal ideas! We have multiple allergies here among our gang: gluten, dairy, corn, oats and maybe tomatoes!
Rachel says
I may be missing something here but how is this free of the top 8 allergens? Nuts are a main allergen?
Kristin says
I know that most people have an allergy to all tree nuts not just peanuts but sunflower butter (mentioned in the recipe) is actually tree-nut free and most are gluten free as well.
Need A Nap2 says
Rachel,
I wondered the same thing, maybe the other recipes will be more nut-allergy friendly. I am very thankful, nuts are my son’s issue and not multiple foods like dairy, soy, etc.
I’ll have to ask my son’s dr about sunflower butter. He can’t have coconut oil and that’s in the recipe.
Jennifer Roberts says
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. We use sunflower-seed butter as a peanut butter/nut butter substitute in our house, and my kids seem to eat it right up!
Michelle @ Willing Cook says
For some reason my first reply never came up. Sunflower seeds, while can be an allergy, is not considered a treenut and is not contained in most sunflower seed butters (be sure to check the label). In the recipe, I wanted to make sure that readers knew that you can use any “nutty” spread and achieve the same delicious result, without the allergen. I hope this is helpful to you.
Michelle
michelle says
Thanks for posting! My 13 month old is allergic to eggs and peanuts and is gluten intolerant. We have only been gluten free for about a week, and I am so excited for this recipe! He loves pancakes but every recipe I find has something he cant have in it. I am not so good at substitions yet so thanks for including all that information!
Tracy says
This is a great series to offer. Thanks so much! I am lucky that my family does not need allergy friendly foods. My daughter previously had a nut allergy but grew out of it in a couple of years.
Michelle @ Willing Cook says
Yay! I’m soooo excited to see this go live. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Crystal, for publishing my guest post. I trust your readers will enjoy every single little {allergy-safe} bite!