Making pancakes perfectly golden-brown without saturating them completely with butter or basically shallow-frying them in canola oil can be tough.
You really need to use a mixture of dairy plus something less intense. The dairy fat makes the pancakes get nice and golden-brown from the butter that browns in the pan while you're cooking the pancakes. But regular butter alone makes for achingly-rich pancakes that are more of a dessert than a true breakfast option. And an oil just makes the pancakes taste like oil, often giving them a fried texture as well, neither of which is what I want in the ultimate breakfast.
I love cooking my pancakes in a generous amount of the Butterfields farms lactose-free butter (available at Wegmans) because the product is real dairy-butter fat suspended in a base of canola oil, so the butter is mixed with the canola in the perfect ratio to get your pancakes really golden-brown from the fats within the butter, yet neither too saturated with butter nor too fried from the canola oil. Plus it's easy to digest because all that butter is completely FREE FROM LACTOSE. That's my number one choice for pancakes, but it's only available on the east coast at Wegmans, and some of the Wegmans stores don't carry that specific product, so it can be hard to find.
Another great option is to use a ratio of 2 pats of coconut butter to 1 pat of regular ol' dairy-butter. I've done this both with the full-lactose, aka normal, butter AND I've also used the Whole Foods brand of butter that's made with the lactase enzyme -- their fancy version of lactose-free butter. Because normal butter and the Whole foods lactose-free butter are so incredibly rich, if you tame them with an Earth Balance coconut butter or the tubs of coconut butter available at Stop and Shop, you get the right amount of browning and butter flavor plus a very mild hint of coconut, without saturation or frying.
Make sure you're using coconut butter rather than coconut oil, since coconut oil has an extremely intense coconut flavor, so I would imagine if you were using the oil, your pancakes would soak in an enormous amount of what's just another oil and then end up tasting as though they were fried inside a coconut.
The difference between the two lactose-free butters is that at Whole Foods, it's a full stick of butter to which the lactase enzyme has been ADDED, just like in Lactaid brand milk. In contrast, the Butterfields farms brand has the lactase sugars actually separated from the butter fat, so what you're eating is actually the fat from butter that has zero lactose in it, which is then suspended in a base of canola oil to make it 100% lactose free with only a slight hint of the taste from the canola oil. I've found I can eat an absolutely unlimited amount of the Butterfields farms butter, whereas if I overdo it on a hugemongous amount of the Whole Foods brand, I get a mild stomach ache and cramps from simply having too much lactose over-all, even though the lactase enzyme was mixed in. I've been able to increase my tolerance for an almost-unlimited amount of the Whole foods brand by ALSO taking a Lactaid pill when I eat a rich item such as a large batch of pancakes or dessert, to give my digestive system a little extra help.
Do you have any tips for making pancakes? Any opinions on butter? Or a favorite allergy-friendly pancake recipe? LET US KNOW :-) And happy cooking!
You really need to use a mixture of dairy plus something less intense. The dairy fat makes the pancakes get nice and golden-brown from the butter that browns in the pan while you're cooking the pancakes. But regular butter alone makes for achingly-rich pancakes that are more of a dessert than a true breakfast option. And an oil just makes the pancakes taste like oil, often giving them a fried texture as well, neither of which is what I want in the ultimate breakfast.
I love cooking my pancakes in a generous amount of the Butterfields farms lactose-free butter (available at Wegmans) because the product is real dairy-butter fat suspended in a base of canola oil, so the butter is mixed with the canola in the perfect ratio to get your pancakes really golden-brown from the fats within the butter, yet neither too saturated with butter nor too fried from the canola oil. Plus it's easy to digest because all that butter is completely FREE FROM LACTOSE. That's my number one choice for pancakes, but it's only available on the east coast at Wegmans, and some of the Wegmans stores don't carry that specific product, so it can be hard to find.
Another great option is to use a ratio of 2 pats of coconut butter to 1 pat of regular ol' dairy-butter. I've done this both with the full-lactose, aka normal, butter AND I've also used the Whole Foods brand of butter that's made with the lactase enzyme -- their fancy version of lactose-free butter. Because normal butter and the Whole foods lactose-free butter are so incredibly rich, if you tame them with an Earth Balance coconut butter or the tubs of coconut butter available at Stop and Shop, you get the right amount of browning and butter flavor plus a very mild hint of coconut, without saturation or frying.
Make sure you're using coconut butter rather than coconut oil, since coconut oil has an extremely intense coconut flavor, so I would imagine if you were using the oil, your pancakes would soak in an enormous amount of what's just another oil and then end up tasting as though they were fried inside a coconut.
The difference between the two lactose-free butters is that at Whole Foods, it's a full stick of butter to which the lactase enzyme has been ADDED, just like in Lactaid brand milk. In contrast, the Butterfields farms brand has the lactase sugars actually separated from the butter fat, so what you're eating is actually the fat from butter that has zero lactose in it, which is then suspended in a base of canola oil to make it 100% lactose free with only a slight hint of the taste from the canola oil. I've found I can eat an absolutely unlimited amount of the Butterfields farms butter, whereas if I overdo it on a hugemongous amount of the Whole Foods brand, I get a mild stomach ache and cramps from simply having too much lactose over-all, even though the lactase enzyme was mixed in. I've been able to increase my tolerance for an almost-unlimited amount of the Whole foods brand by ALSO taking a Lactaid pill when I eat a rich item such as a large batch of pancakes or dessert, to give my digestive system a little extra help.
Do you have any tips for making pancakes? Any opinions on butter? Or a favorite allergy-friendly pancake recipe? LET US KNOW :-) And happy cooking!