These delicious low carb pancakes have a swirl of sweet cinnamon filling and a cream cheese glaze. Made with almond and coconut flours, they make a wonderful gluten-free brunch!
If you’re a food blogger making everything from scratch, you’d better be ready for some spectacular fails. I’m talking “Wow, this is as dense as a hockey puck and tastes like one too” kinds of fails. The sort where you realize that nothing can be done to save the item and the best place for it is the trash can. Then there are the medium sorts of fails, the ones where things just didn’t quite come together properly but it’s still edible and you make your family eat it because you hate food waste. I don’t have fails too often any more, but most of them are of the second variety. I definitely had my share of the “pitch it in the trash” variety at the beginning but I know my ingredients well enough now that I tend to know what won’t work at all. So no spectacular fails lately and I’d really like to keep it that way. Spectacular fails can be a little rough on the ego, not to mention all the expense of wasted ingredients.
The first time I attempted a low carb version of cinnamon roll pancakes, it was definitely a medium fail. They were delicious, they just looked like utter crap and they were really hard to work with. I thought it would be so simple, just swirling a cinnamon mixture into the pancakes as they cooked. But my problems were two-fold. For one thing, I was working with an almond flour pancake batter that was simply too thick and didn’t hold together very well. This was before I’d developed my really good low carb Coconut Flour Pancakes. My other problem was that cinnamon filling kept hardening up too much to pipe into the pancakes and I got increasingly more frustrated. The end result was still excellent but I gave up on the idea for almost 2 years.
I recently gave them another try with an combination of almond and coconut flours, which happens to be my new go-to low carb pancake batter recipe (I’ve been using it for a while now). I also kept the cinnamon swirl filling in a saucepan over low heat so that it liquid enough to add to the cooking pancakes. These were just the right fixes to my previous problems and the end result was both delicious AND pretty. Sometimes it’s worth it to persevere!
Please see my Cinnamon Roll Pancake recipe on A Sweet Life Diabetes Magazine.
Serves 6. Each serving has 5.08 g of NET CARBS.
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Kelly says
These look amazing! Can you recommend a good vanilla whey protein? Thanks!
Carolyn says
I love Organic Valley!
Julie says
Hi, That website doesn’t seem to be around any longer, is there any other way I can get this recipe?
Carolyn says
The website is indeed around and should be working now!
Julie says
And there it is…great!
Dianne says
THM has a new Baking Blend flour substitute for coconut and almond flours. The new blend is considered neutral for THM, neither fat like coconut and almond flour or car by like oat flour. Have you tried it? Lots of paleo – type people are ordering it.
Carolyn says
I have tried it. It’s much drier than almond flour so it doesn’t work as a one for one replacement in all recipes. But I do have some big plans for it!
Jennifer says
It was probably user error but I got a lot of smoke when I flipped these. Something about the cinnamon I’m guessing. I solved it by putting half the batter, a dollop or cinnamon filling, then the other half of batter. So my version if more of a cinnamon filled pancake. Worked great! If anyone else is cursing their smoke detector placement try my trick!
Carolyn says
Well that sounds like a pretty good solution. Erythritol does tend to smoke a bit when heated but that’s how it caramelizes (I’ve made plenty of caramel sauce with it!). So it’s not harmful (sugar smokes a bit when heated to caramelization too), but I still like your solution.
Susan says
Can I assume that I’d I only have unflavored whey powder on hand, I can add vanilla extract. BTW, I’m not sure where I read it, but I usually add a dollop or two (not more exact than that) of whole milk ricotta to pancake or crepe batter. It may be superstitious, but I think it makes it easier to work with.
Carolyn says
Yes, go ahead and use unflavored and then add some vanilla and a touch more sweetener.
Joshua Hampton says
I’m glad you persevered with this recipe. These pancakes look spectacular.
Amy says
Hi Carolyn,
I’m sorry to refer to another of your recipes, but I wanted to make sure you saw this comment – I’m getting ready to purchase the items needed for the pumpkin spice latte, and I noticed it calls for cardamom seeds – if you use whole seeds do you crush them? I’m trying to figure out what type I should buy from Penzeys:
http://www.penzeys.com/cgi-bin/penzeys/p-penzeyscardamom.html
Thanks for any direction and thanks for your recipes – they’re lifesavers!
Carolyn says
You want the ones not in the pods, so the ones that say “no shell”. You won’t need to crush them in this recipe, although you can if you want.
susie t. gibbs says
I love these and the story behind them!! I am going to try making them this weekend!!! I’ll give ya a shout out!
Carolyn says
Thanks, doll!
janet says
These sound terrific, but I don’t find a carb count anywhere. Am I just missing it? I’d like to give these a try, but I know he will ask “How much carb is it?”
Carolyn says
Hi Janet…yes, I just discovered that A Sweet Life left out that info, even though I provided it to them. So I’ve added it in now on my post but here it is too: Serves 6 (2 pancakes per serving) 5.08 g of NET CARBS.
Food energy: 392kcal
Saturated fatty acids: 15.17g
Total fat: 32.29g
Calories from fat: 290
Cholesterol: 211mg
Carbohydrate: 10.00g
Total dietary fiber: 4.92g
Protein: 13.98g
Sodium: 223mg