These secretly vegan and healthy brownie batter pancakes taste like eating dessert for breakfast!
This is the pancake recipe for chocolate lovers.
Dark, rich and fudgy, yet healthy enough for breakfast at the same time!
The delicious homemade chocolate pancakes are magically made without any eggs at all and can be completely dairy free and vegan.
You may also like these Overnight Oats – 15 new flavors
Pancake Topping Ideas
Chocolate Syrup
Sliced Strawberries
Mini Chocolate Chips + Banana
For the past few days, one of my friends has been staying with me while she waits to move into a new apartment, so basically, it’s been an ongoing slumber party.
We’ve had movie nights, spa nights, and every night is chocolate night.
On the menu last night: Healthy Chocolate Chip Cookies.
Yet both of us woke up craving chocolate again this morning, and the only way to remedy this was to make a chocolate pancake feast.
Brownie Batter Pancakes
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup spelt, white, or oat flour (for flourless, try these Keto Pancakes)
- 1 tbsp dutch cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 tbsp sweetener of choice
- 1/4 tsp baking powder
- 1/16 tsp salt
- 1 1/2 tbsp oil, or applesauce or mashed banana for fat free
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 4 – 5 tbsp milk of choice
Instructions
- Stir dry ingredients well, then add wet. Add more milk of choice as needed to form a batter consistency. Grease a nonstick pan well and heat on medium. When skillet is hot (add a drop of water to test – the pan is ready if it sizzles), drop small ladles of the batter. Use a spatula to flip when edges begin to look dry. Re-grease the pan after each set of pancakes.*I personally much prefer the oil version but some readers really like the fat-free one so I'm including that too. I haven't tried subbing regular cocoa powder for the dutch, so be sure to report back if you experiment with that. View Nutrition Facts
Notes
More Dessert-For-Breakfast Ideas
(Or this Vegan Banana Bread)
YUM! Made these today and don’t even feel guilty about it! I used regular flour, omitted the sugar, but added Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips and they were divine! Thanks for sharing (o:
I’ve had brownie batter pancakes on both Xmas and New Year’s Day. 🙂 You deserve a prize!! I’ve melted Nutella in the microwave for sauce. AWESOME! Do you have another sauce you like to use? (assume it’s not just Hershey’s?)
You can try this one:
https://lett-trim.today/2010/05/20/homemade-artisana-cacao-bliss%3C/a%3E%3Cbr /> I like to freeze it and make chocolate bars, too! 🙂
Wow- thank you! Looks great. 🙂
I must admit, I was a little sceptical going into this recipe, but now I feel ashamed of that scepticism. I mean DAYUMMMMMM they tasted like brownie batter, almost exactly. They were amazing. So thank you Katie, and I apologize for ever doubting you and your wonderful recipes.
Katie,
Thanks for the recipe, I made the pancakes a few days ago and the flavor was deliciously chocolate!
I definitely plan on repeating this recipe; I agree with your mantra of chocolate everyday! My only question is if you have any advice for reducing the gummy-ness of the pancakes. As a non-vegan, I am used to the traditional fluffiness of non-vegan pancakes, but am intrigued by your healthier and more animal/environmentally friendly versions of recipes. Perhaps I need to adapt to the new texture – but I thought I would check and see if you had any advice! Again, loved the flavor!
Try using oil for the applesauce. Fat-free baked goods tend to be gummy. Let me know if you do try it! 🙂
What would I need to change (if anything) to use this recipe for waffles? I’m on the hunt for healthy waffle recipes to try out with my new waffle iron! Thanks!
Sorry, I’ve never made homemade waffles :-?.
I just made these as waffles and and they turned out great! I did have to make some changes, and used this formula for converting the recipe for waffles:
Flour = same
Baking powder: increased by 25%
Salt:same
Sugar or Sugar Substitute: increased by 300% (crisper, sweeter waffle)
Almond Milk (or other milk): reduced by 20—25%
“Egg” (not used in this recipe): same
Oil or Applesauce: increased 100%
I also increased the recipe by 50% for two waffles and used any extra batter I had as a topping.
You are absolutely my hero for creating this amazing recipe for all of us chocoholics out there…Just made these (using banana instead of applesauce) and they are incredible 🙂 Everything on your site actually seems to be amazing<3
I just tried these using Cup4Cup gluten free flour and they were delicious!!!
So, I know this may sound silly but I don’t know how to make pancakes!
Im just confused as to what to do when you finished all the mixing processes. Do you just heat a frying pan and put them on? I have no idea!
Silly me, I wish I knew how to make pancakes 🙂
Grease frying pan first. Then drop batter in pancake-sized amounts onto pan. When they bubble, you can turn them… but you don’t need to do so. Don’t turn them when they’re still liquid!
Katie, this was fabulous, and all the recipes of yours I have made over the past 3 weeks! I made these for my husband and myself this morning, and it was like eating a fresh, warm, chocolate chocolate chip cookie for breakfast! Wow!
I double this recipe to serve my parents at Sunday breakfast – I used whole wheat pastry flour, a mashed banana instead of apple sauce (just didn’t have any), & regular unsweetened cocoa powder. I also added 1 T of chocolate hemp protein powder (next time I’ll try 2) and just 1 packet of truvia.
In some of the pancakes I added sliced strawberries. I loved the strawberry version, and I used peanut butter instead of syrup. My mom liked plain better & she wants chocolate chips in hers next time! Anyway, they were a hit and a double recipe was great for 3 people with fruit on the side.
For anyone’s who’s arent’ turning out. Make it a hot pan, and make sure the edges of your pancake are looking dry and cooked before flipping.
I love your idea to add strawberries!
I like how you don’t write out the instructions for how to make pancakes. Who needs all that extra for something that SHOULD BE basic knowledge. I read a recipe for grilled cheese one time. GRILLED CHEESE! Good grief.
Just made these today for my whole family. They LOVED them! My 5-year-old ate them plain and my 6-year-old said they were the best pancakes she’s ever eaten. Hubs loved them too. Wow! Pretty incredible for vegan, sugar-free pancakes!! I’m going to try subbing in half buckwheat flour next time. These are SO good!
Made these for breakfast this morning and I was pleasantly surprised! Delicious! Typically don’t enjoy chocolate for breakfast, but these were perfect.
I just made these yesterday with half buckwheat flour, and honestly they were even more amazing – I think because of the texture. The buckwheat made them super fluffy. They were honestly like cake. I wish I had some to eat right now… lol. I’m going to try them this coming Sunday with all buckwheat flour. If it’s a success, these will be GF 🙂 Yay!
Hi! I tried to make this recipe yesterday. For some reason, the pancakes came out very thin and wouldn’t flip. I replaced the stevia with agave and the applesauce with Greek yogurt.
I can only vouch for the results of the recipe as written.
Agave is going to thin out your batter. As will Greek yogurt or even the applesauce (as opposed to using the oil). This is a small amount of batter, so a small amount of agave is even an issue in the fluffiness of the final product. I used everything as written, except for subbing my GF flour mix which works fine in nearly ally recipe, but used applesauce, not oil. I even added extra flour because the batter was quite thin, and mine came out thin as well and tricky to flip. But they still tasted wonderful.
Try using a granulated sweetener next time rather than agave, or be sure to add in extra flour and probably and extra scant pinch of Baking Soda….perhaps even a pinch of baking powder. My pancake recipes usually get both anyway. HTH.
These were yummy…chocolate pancakes for breakfast are perfect when Aunt Flo is in town, lol.