oat milk pancakes with cheese

How to Make Oat Milk Pancakes

Just because you are allergic to milk, use less dairy milk out of concern for the environment doesn’t mean you can’t eat pancakes anymore! It so happens, pancakes don’t really need (cow’s) milk. They’re actually very flexible regarding the type of liquid you add to them! Nowadays there are plenty of alternative milks out there that serve perfectly fine in your pancakes. We’ll be zooming in on oat milk.

What is oat milk?

Whereas dairy milk comes from a cow and is technically ready to go once the cow is milked, oat milk is not. Instead, oats are processed into oat milk by soaking them into liquid and breaking down some of their more starchy components to get a smooth liquid. Nevertheless, they particles in oat milk are larger than that in cow’s milk. As such, if you leave a bottle for long enough, you will notice these particles sinking to the bottom due to sedimentation.

During processing, manufacturers may add some additional fats, gums to improve structure and phosphates to help emulsify and stabilize the pH-value. We’ve covered the overall oat milk production process in far more detail in another post. It is actually quite a recent invention, dating back to the ’90s.

Since oat milk is mostly made of just oats, it contains a considerable amount of fiber (about 8g/liter) and (complex) carbohydrates. It doesn’t contain as much protein as cow’s milk does and the proteins are different, which is why it will behave slightly differently than milk. Luckily, this is most important in applications where milk has a core structural role (e.g. caramels) and not as much in pancakes!

oat milk pancakes with cheese
Pancakes made with oat milk, without the (optional) cheese, they’d be fully plant based.

How does oat milk look & taste?

When you first see oat milk you might notice it’s not white like cow’s milk is. Instead, it’s a light brownish color. If oat milk has been standing around for a while it will turn whiter, but the mere factor that some of those brown particles sink to the bottom. By giving it a quick shake though, all of those are dispersed throughout.

With regards to taste: it definitely tastes a little different than cow’s milk, the easiest product to compare it to. Funnily enough, it tastes a bit like the milk left after you’ve eaten a bowl of milk with oats! It’s a little watery, but has a nice, maybe nutty?, flavor to it.

This flavor is important when it comes to pancakes. Technically, you can easily make pancakes with water instead of milk, however, the extra flavor of a milk really enriches a pancake.

Using oat milk in pancakes

So how does oat milk work in pancakes? For that, let’s have a look at pancakes themselves first. There are a lot of different types of pancakes, so for this thought exercise we’ll choose one, an American pancake, but most work very similarly!

Pancake science recap

American pancakes are a cooked batter made with flour, a liquid, a raising agent, and often something to help firm up the texture and provide some fattiness (eggs). The flour forms the core of the pancake. By cooking the flour it holds onto all that added moisture and firms up, mostly because of the starches. The liquid helps the flour to bind together and enables the starches to gelatinize. Baking soda and/or baking powder, both raising agents, help ensure that cooked starch becomes nice and airy instead of stodgy. Last but not least, the binder helps ensure that light and fluffy texture. Some fat will prevent the pancakes from drying out

oat milk pancakes with cheese
Light and fluffy pancakes! What we like to call American style.

Role of oat milk

The main functional role of the liquid in pancakes is really to bind all that flour together to make a smooth batter. While cooking the liquid is what enables the starch to cook by releasing some of its components into the water and thickening it up. If you’re using milk, you’re also adding flavor. The flavor of milk is added and the proteins and sugars in milk add flavor, by themselves, but also by taking part in the Maillard reaction. This reaction creates a lot of different flavors and a nice brown color.

It so happens, oat milk can take over most of these roles (except for the milky flavor, but it does add a little oaty flavor!).

You can substitute oat milk for dairy milk in almost any pancake (the recipe below is just one example). It also worked well for Dutch pancakes and making crepes with oat milk shouldn’t give you a problem either. Of course, the final pancakes might taste just a little different, however, since you tend to eat a pancake with some sort of topping (think maple syrup, fruit, cheese, bacon, …) those nuanced differences aren’t that pronounced that you’d notice them.

oat milk pancakes with cheese

Oat Milk Pancakes

Yield: 2-3 portions (8-10 thick small pancakes)

These pancakes themselves are vegan, though you can easily convert them into a non-vegan version with minor changes. The oat milk works great in the pancakes and adds a little bit of flavor, compared to just using water.

Ingredients

  • 300g whole wheat flour (use whole wheat pastry flour, it's made from a different type of wheat and has a lower protein content than that used for bread and makes a very light and fluffy pancake)
  • 300g oat milk (exact quantity will depend on your flour type)
  • 1,5 tbsp of egg replacer (see notes*) OR 1 egg
  • 50g water (if not using an egg only!)
  • juice of a lemon (optional, I like the texture it gives)
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp baking soda (optional, only use if you're also using lemon juice)
  • Oil for frying

Optional toppings

  • handful of blueberries
  • some grated cheese

Instructions

  1. Mix the flour, milk, egg (replacer) and lemon juice until you've got a smooth batter. The batter should be thin enough to just slightly spread out, but it shouldn't flow easily. It should be firm enough so you can scoop it onto the hot pan.
  2. Leave to stand until you'll be using it (max. 30 minutes, else store it covered in the fridge until using). I find this helps hydrate the flours and the egg replacer, but if you're hungry you can proceed immediately.
  3. Add the baking powder and baking soda. Adding these at the end prevents them from doing their work well before the pancakes are in the pan.
  4. Heat a pan on a medium fire and depending on the type of pan you're using, coat with a little oil.
  5. Take a good serving spoon full of batter and place it on the pan, flatten slightly if necessary.
  6. Add your topping to the pancake, do this when they're still pretty liquid so the toppings have a good hold onto the pancake. Since these pancakes are quite thick it is easy to add quite a lot of topping without breaking them upon flipping!
  7. Turn the pancake when the top looks like it is just starting to set. At this point it should be easy to flip without breaking apart.
  8. Bake until the pancake is fully cooked, a few more minutes on a medium heat at this point.
  9. Enjoy!

Notes

*We often use Bob's Red Mill egg replacer which is a blend of potato starch, tapioca flour, psyllium husk and baking soda. Especially the psyllium husk absorbs a lot of water which is why the amount of milk/water you need to end will depend a lot on the type of replacer you're using!

Have you made anything with oat milk? Would love to hear how that’s working for you!

References

The first major commercial manufacturer of oat milk, Oatly

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2 Comments

  1. Hi,

    it’s good to know that from a science perspective oat milk works well. I use it a lot, oat cream as well as I know that great vegan chefs are working with it.

    By the way, it’s the only plant-based milk that is not producing ugly flakes in my morning coffee. Do you have an explanation?

    • What a great question about those flakes in your coffee. I didn’t know the answer, but got curious and found out that there’s lots of people having this same issue!

      Those flakes you see in your coffee is actually curdled milk (pretty similar to what you try to make when making cheese). These curds are proteins that have denatured which causes them to clump together. Denaturation can occur through heat and acidity, in this case it’s most likely the acidity, although heat will speed it up.

      Whether or not clumps are formed depends on your coffee (less acidic coffee gives less clumps) but also on the milk itself. Not all proteins are sensitive to acidity and apparently, the proteins in oat milk aren’t. Those in soy milk (and I’ve also seen people with issues with almond milk) apparently are. Since different plants can have very different types of proteins, I would expect a difference between the different milks.

      If you want to see a video on the topic, look here:
      I also used this article from the Ktchen.

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