Today we are enjoying spring break with my kids’ favorite Chocolate Buckwheat Pancakes! Since I’m not teaching this week, I got a little fancier than normal.

Ingredients

• 1 cup buckwheat flour
• 4 tablespoons cacao powder
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon Redmond’s Real Salt
• 1/4 cup coconut sugar or maple sugar (I bought Coombs Family Farms Maple Sugar at Fresh Thyme)
• 1 1/3  cup non-dairy milk (I used almond)
• vegan chocolate chips (Use Lily’s Baking Chips to make a sugar-free pancake– they are sweetened with stevia, or Enjoy Life chips to make them vegan)
• bananas, The Best Vegan Chocolate Sauce  & soy or rice whip cream to garnish (optional)

Notes: I used cacao and not cocoa in these pancakes. Cacao is a superfood. The difference is that cacao is “milled at low temperature to protect the nutrients and flavor.” Personally, I find cacao not as sweet at cocoa.

Directions

1. Combine buckwheat, cacao, baking powder, salt, maple sugar, and non-dairy milk  in a mixing bowl
2. Spray griddle pan with a non-stick spray (I like my Circulon Acclaim Hard Anodized Nonstick 11-Inch Square Griddle)
3. Scoop the pancake batter onto the griddle and then sprinkle mini-chocolate chips on top. Once firm, flip. The second side only cooks for a minute and a half.
4. Repeat until all batter is used. Makes ~12 pancakes.
5. You can serve it with warm maple syrup and vegan chocolate chips. Or, be a little more decadent. I sprinkled chocolate chips, The Best Vegan Chocolate Sauce, and sliced bananas, and then topped it with Soyatoo Soy Whip Cream that I got from Whole Foods  (Fresh Thyme also sells it). The Soyatoo Rice Cream is also tasty. You can check it out on Amazon here. I love fresh coconut whip cream, but sometimes for just a little cream on pancakes, I don’t want to make an entire can of coconut cream.