These Carrot Cake Pancakes are filled with warm spices like cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, shredded carrots, and nuts. They’re whole-grain, “flourless,” gluten-free, and refined sugar-free. Top them with a maple cream cheese syrup for extra pizzazz. This is a decadent, healthy breakfast that you don’t wanna miss!
Sometimes I like to make my breakfast taste like dessert.
Okay.. saying sometimes is kind of a lie.. it’s my favorite thing to do! I love eating healthy, but I also love decadent, rich flavors, so what’s a girl to do? Turn every healthy breakfast she makes into something decadent too, of course! 🙂
These Carrot Cake Pancakes are a prime example of that. Made with gluten-free oats (turned to oat flour), these healthy pancakes are whole grain, “flourless,” gluten-free, naturally sweetened, and filled with shredded carrots and nuts.
If you’d REALLY like to have dessert-for-breakfast, then you top them with maple cream cheese syrup.
It’s not healthy, and it’s optional. But, it takes these pancakes to the next level and really makes them “Carrot Cake Pancakes.” After all, what’s Carrot Cake without cream cheese frosting?!
Let’s talk about making these pancakes.
First, to keep these pancakes gluten-free you’ll need to use certified gluten-free oat flour or oats. If you prefer, you could make these with regular flour or a gluten-free all purpose flour as well. Or, you could do a blend of oat flour and all purpose.
If you use oat flour that’s too grainy, these pancakes may not stay together well. Be sure to use a very fine oat flour. If you can’t get your flour blended up fine enough in your food processor or high powered blender, I recommend buying this one.
To make these pancakes dairy-free, you can use almond milk (or another comparable milk), coconut oil (or dairy-free butter alternative) and omit the cream cheese syrup. Just regular maple syrup is still delicious!
Lastly, you can make these pancakes vegan if you’d like with the dairy-free adjustments above, as well as one flax or chia egg (1 tbsp flax/chia seed mixed with 2.5 tbsp water, sit till gelled).
If you like shredded coconut in your Carrot Cake, feel free to add about 1/4 cup or so of shredded coconut to these pancakes as well.
After making your pancake batter, be sure to let it rest for about 10 minutes. This gives the oat flour time to soak up the wet ingredients and get thicker. After 10 minutes, you’ll want to check your batter and see if it’s too thin or thick. If it’s too thin, add a little more flour. If it’s too thick, add a little more milk.
To cook these pancakes correctly (with oat flour), you’ll want to cook them low and slow. Oat flour is thick, which means it’s easy to cook the outside of the pancakes without cooking the inside properly. You’ll want to keep your pan or griddle on a medium-medium low heat, and cook them a little longer than traditional pancakes.
To make the Cream Cheese Maple Syrup…
You’ll want to be sure your brick of cream cheese is at room temperature, for best results. If your cream cheese is too cold it won’t blend properly, and instead you’ll end up with little bits of cream cheese throughout your syrup. No good. After mixing together your cream cheese, maple syrup, and coconut oil (or butter), add a little milk if it’s still too thick. It will be a thicker syrup but should still be drippy.
Hearty Carrot Cake Pancakes are the perfect Spring or Easter breakfast! I love the spices, and sneaking a little veggies into breakfast feels good too.
I hope you give these Carrot Cake Pancakes a shot and let me know what you think! After you make them, leave a comment and a star rating, below. And take a picture and tag me on Instagram too!
Looking for other fun, easy, healthy AND decadent breakfast options? Check out my Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies or Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes.
- 1 cup oat flour (certified gluten-free)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ginger
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 3/4 cup almond milk or milk of choice
- 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted (or butter)
- 1 tbsp maple syrup
- 1/2 tsp vanilla
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup shredded carrots
- 1/4 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)
- 4 oz cream cheese (reduced fat)
- 1/4 cup maple syrup
- 2 tbsp coconut oil, melted (or butter)
- 1-2 tbsp milk of choice
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In a large mixing bowl, add your milk, coconut oil, maple syrup, vanilla and egg. Whisk till well combined.
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To the same bowl, add your dry ingredients (oat flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg). Stir till your wet and dry ingredients are combined.
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Add your carrot and walnuts and stir them into your pancake batter. Let your batter rest for about 10 minutes, to thicken up.
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Heat your stove to a medium-medium low heat.
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(Spray your pan with no-stick spray!) Put a scoop of pancake batter onto your pan and cook for a few minutes, till you start to see bubbles forming on top. Carefully flip your pancake and cook for another few minutes.
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Continue till you have cooked all 10 small pancakes.
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In a mixing bowl, combine your cream cheese, maple syrup and coconut oil and beat them together with a hand mixer.
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Add in 1 tbsp of milk and blend again. If your syrup is too thick, add another tbsp of milk. This is all depending on your preference of how thin you would like your syrup; I used 2 tbsp of milk for a more runny, syrup consistency.
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Drizzle across the top of your pancakes, and devour!
*Store leftover pancakes and syrup in your fridge, and they will last about a week.
The syrup /icing was delicious but even though I’ve followed the recipe and the pancakes themselves turned out way too bitter. I’ve gone over every ingredient in my mind and I think there is just too much baking soda that caused this bitter effect. Disappointing.
Sorry to hear that, Sasha! I haven’t had that bitter taste before, although too much baking soda may be a good guess.
Thanks for this recipe! I made it without the icing (I can’t have dairy and didn’t have a substitute) and they were still delicious just with maple syrup. It came together super quick and cooked beautifully (used a cast iron skillet greased with coconut oil, I covered it for about a minute before flipping and leaving uncovered. Kept it on a med-low heat throughout) -nicely browned and not undercooked in the middle like some other gluten free pancake recipes I’ve made.
Awesome! So great to hear that Laura, thanks for the comment!
This was so yummy! We thoroughly enjoyed them. We didn’t have cream cheese on hand for the syrup/icing so we mixed greek yogurt with 1/4 tsp of coconut infused vinagar, 1/4 tsp vanilla, 2 tsp maple syrup and cinnamon. So yummy!
Warning! Do not ever use coconut milk, tastes AWFUL! And way too salty and mushy, anyway thanks for putting up this kind of recipes that encourage us to eat healthier, but I would not recommend it
Hi Jane, I’m sorry to hear that these pancakes didn’t turn out for you. I haven’t made them with coconut milk, and after reading your experience with it I wouldn’t recommend it either. Thank you for sharing that information.