You want pancakes in the morning, but you don’t have any milk. Don’t go grocery shopping just yet! Can you cook pancakes without using milk? Yes, you can make pancakes the same manner with water instead of milk! You may replace milk for water and make excellent pancakes that taste just as good if you enhance the batter with flavoring extracts or syrups. Read on to find out how to create pancakes without milk, how they taste, how they differ, and more!
Pancake Basics
Pancakes have traditionally been made in a wide variety of straightforward methods, frequently using only the ingredients on hand. The only ingredients needed to make pancakes before the invention of premade pancake mixes and various flavorings and additives were flour, salt, sugar, and water. That’s accurate. In the past, people used to make pancakes without milk — some still do — but not out of desperation or a lack of finances.
While dairy-free pancakes differ somewhat in texture from traditional pancakes, they can still be delicious. If you want to make them more like the real thing, you can even add butter, but for the most part, they will taste fantastic if you serve them with the correct sides and flavorings. These pancake qualities and how they can differ from milkless pancakes are listed below.
Regular Pancake Texture
Pancakes are light, fluffy, and the perfect amount of airy. Because of their airy and slightly porous nature, they can be matched with syrupy or sugary components and easily absorb ambient flavors. In conventional pancakes, the milk adds a delicate creaminess and helps soften the bread as it cooks. This is one of the reasons why pancakes can stay fresh and soft even after cooling down.
Milk can also aid in the addition of air to the mixture, particularly if you use skim milk, which traps more air bubbles as it is shaken. This impact is amplified, especially if the batter is processed with an electric mixer! However, if you don’t have any dietary restrictions, whole milk may provide more textural benefits due to the higher milk fat.
Milkless Pancake Texture
Although there won’t be much of a difference, some people might still be able to pick out a few distinctive qualities in milkless pancakes. A pancake made without milk may be a little stiff because milk also contributes to the soft texture of the pancakes. It is frequently described as being a little denser. If the pancake is combined with syrups or other moisturizing ingredients, it can restore some of its softness. Evaporation causes milkless pancakes to stiffen up more in the refrigerator. The same thing might happen if you reheat the pancakes, especially if you do it on an open pan.
Regular Pancake Flavor
Regular pancakes have a highly balanced sweet flavor — while the milk doesn’t provide many subtle flavor notes, it does impart a rich and gently buttery flavor that is complemented by the additional butter in the recipe. When pancakes produced with whole milk are blended with flavoring extracts, they take on a deeper and more delectable flavor!
Milkless Pancake Flavor
If you use the same components, milkless pancakes have a flavor that is similar to regular ones. Few individuals will be able to tell much of a difference in the pancakes’ flavor, as was already indicated. To make up for the recipe’s absence of milk, you can also add maple syrup or vanilla essence to the batter. These flavoring elements won’t just cover up the general flavor notes of the milkless pancakes; they’ll actually improve them!
How To Make Pancakes With Water
Here is how you can easily make pancakes using water instead of milk!
Ingredients
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1¼ cups water
- 3½ tsp baking powder
- 1½ tbsp sugar
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 egg
- 3 tbsp butter, melted
- 1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
1. Begin by preparing the batter. In a large mixing basin, whisk together the flour and baking powder. Then stir in the salt and sugar. Combine all of the dry ingredients thoroughly!
2. Stir in the egg, butter, and water gradually. Incorporate all of the wet ingredients into the flour, then add more water as needed to get a beautiful, not-too-runny batter.
Before continuing, make sure that any flour lumps are removed.
We recommend sifting the flour before adding it to the bowl for the best results!
3. Stir in the vanilla essence to the batter. Allow the batter to rest for 3-4 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your frying pan or griddle!
4. Melt some butter or oil in the pan, then scoop up some batter. You can change the size of the scoop to your liking.
5. Cook the pancake until the underside is golden brown. Then flip the pancake once and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Remove the pancake and place it on a platter when both sides are golden brown.
While the rest of the pancakes are cooking, keep them warm in the oven at 200°F. Simply place a microwave-safe plate, platter, or baking tray on top.
6. Continue until you have the required number of pancakes or your batter runs out!
7. Garnish the pancakes with fresh fruit or keep it simple with a drizzle of maple syrup. Enjoy with a little bit of butter on top!
Three-Ingredient Pancake Recipe
Here is a three-ingredient recipe that you can use to produce pancakes that are suitable for vegans and lactose-free that just require flour, water, and sugar. Fun fact: When pancakes were first introduced, this was how most people ate them. This recipe, popularly known as “the poor man’s pancake,” is a great alternative to the ingredient-heavy pancake mixes of the present. This recipe’s main goal is to demonstrate that, as long as you use the correct measurements and follow the instructions exactly, you may create pancakes in the most unusual manner and they will still turn out fantastic!
Ingredients
- ½ cup flour
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ cup water
Instructions
1. Combine flour and sugar in a big bowl. Whisk the mixture thoroughly.
2. Add a little water to the mixture and stir until it is fully combined. Once a batter forms, keep adding water until it does.
3. Use butter or oil to cook these pancakes on a griddle or in a pan. On a medium burner, the pancakes will cook in about 3 to 4 minutes per side.
4. Place the pancakes on a dish, sprinkle some sugar over them, and serve them with fruit. To make up for the lack of other components, you can also add maple syrup or other flavorings.
Pancake-Making Tips And Tricks
In the same amount, water and milk can be substituted. So, don’t add more water to make up for the lack of milk!
Remember to keep an eye on the consistency of the batter to determine the proper amount of water. If the batter is overly thick, a splash of water can be added to “loosen” it.
Adding maple syrup to the batter is an excellent technique to enhance the flavor and texture of the pancakes. The maple syrup will aid in the caramelization of the pancake’s surface while also providing a delightful flavor that will mask the lack of milk in the batter.
To balance out the flavor, flavoring extracts like as vanilla extract or maple syrup extract can be added to the batter. You can also try other types of extracts, such as almond extract, or add a pinch of cinnamon to the pancakes!
If you don’t have milk but have condensed milk on hand, we recommend adding some to the batter to provide a dairy-like flavor. When adding additional sugar-heavy ingredients, please adjust the amount of sugar used.
Is your batter too runny? Then, to compensate for the extra water in the recipe, add a touch of flour. Just make sure to increase the amount of the other ingredients if the added flour exceeds 2-3 tablespoons.
Related Questions
Water-based pancakes taste just as good! Here are some questions we thought you might have in relation to them now that you know how to make them.
What other milk substitutes can you use instead of water to make pancakes?
If you don’t want to use water, use almond milk, soy milk, rice milk, cashew milk, or another form of nut milk to make dairy-free pancakes. These milk alternatives may not have the same texture or flavor as conventional pancakes, but they are a terrific and nutritional option!
Do water-based pancakes have a longer shelf life?
No, pancakes prepared with water have an about equal lifespan to those made with dairy. Both kind of pancakes have a short shelf life. To increase the pancakes’ shelf life by roughly 2-3 days (fridge) or 1-2 months (freezer), we advise keeping them in the refrigerator or freezer (freezer).