paleo souffle pancakes and pitfalls: a must read for this rainy day

So this morning we were chatting away on Facebook ( including voices from Sri Lanka, Canada, the US and The Netherlands...oh, internet what a thing of wonder.) The topic: Japanese cloud pancakes, or souffle pancakes.  People wondered what the  inner consistency was: pudding, souffle, cake. 

I, the queen of Google, asked the search engine to cough up some info. The images looked like normal IHOP but the cakes themselves were higher.  Hmmmm. I am a sucker for high light pancakes and sadly have not had any luck for over 25 years as a USA expat to find the perfect recipe that works in Europe and now I am following Paleo and ugh.

Now, most of the souffle pancake recipes are for normal diets with flour. Most of the recipes are with separated eggs and whipping and all that folding jazz.  So when I found an almond flour base with blender throw it all in instructions I was hooked. It is rainy and stormy out so a good day to experiment.

I was also excited because I am lazy today (blender recipe!) and I would use up more nut flour.  One of the reasons I rarely do fake paleo cake and bread is that nut flours are disgustingly stodgy and so calorie dense that you have to be insane to eat them more than once a month.  They taste odd and are hardly worth the investment. Besides cave men only eat angel food cake. My story and I am sticking to it.

And a sweet curious about souffle pancakes friend is under the weather today and I thought if I tested this for her it might help in some way.  Yup, good intentions and the road to hell,  got right on it.

I used this recipe as a starter:  https://thenourishinghome.com/2012/05/fluffy-little-almond-flour-pancakes/ and surely this author loves her recipe. Good job you.   But I did not want a whole batch. Let us do a half recipe said that fool who lives in my head.

I never have my laptop in the kitchen and rarely even the smartphone. I usually jot recipes down on paper so when the inevitable spill and greasy fingerprints begin my electronics are well away.  I cut open the almond flour bag and it exploded: 

well, dang.  The one time I put it in the kitchen.
Cleaned that up and started to measure half of everything, decided 2 eggs because half of 3 is too complicated,  put the liquids in the blender, dumped the dry on top as per instructions,  started the blend and looked down to find the melted butter looking back at me.   Dumped that in, turned to the right and dang, there was the coconut milk.  Dumped that in.  This does not bode well.

I melted butter and coconut oil in the big skillet and after blitzing the mix for quite a while, started to pour it into the skillet.  Boy Howdy she ain't kiddin' it is thick.   But the first batch were in the pan finally and from the outside they looked pretty nice:

That's one hump of  thick batter.

But they looked pretty.

Unfortunately, after leaving the pan, they were part stodgy pancake and part mucky scrambled egg on the inside.  I thought it might be needing a lower heat and longer cook, but that was even worse.

I ran em through the microwave to finish cooking the egg.  With butter and a little maple syrup, they were just edible but hardly a wowzer experience. Almond flour is not delicious. Ever.

Maybe a recipe with arrowroot?  maybe try a whole batch and see what the difference is? Maybe my baking soda is too old?  maybe the rainy day?  I did screw up a bunch of things.

But meh.