What we have here is peanut butter cup-inspired pancakes. Then we put an actual homemade peanut butter cup on top and eat the whole stack, because life is short and we love chocolate, peanut butter and breakfast. What more explanation do you need? This recipe is gluten free and vegan but can be customized to suit your needs and preferences. Oat flour and my go-to GF flour blend keep the gluten devils at bay, but I honestly think all purpose or whole wheat pastry would make these a tad bit fluffier. If you don’t want a flax egg, don’t know what it is, or simply don’t believe in it (like John), omit it and use a chicken egg instead. This is your pancake arena. Rule it how you will. Now, onto more important things: what do they taste like? The pancakes themselves aren’t overly sweet but have the perfect hint of chocolate and peanut butter. The outer ring is infused with cocoa powder, and the inner ring is all about the peanut butter. Because these are gluten free they don’t take on that traditional “fluffy” pancake texture, but if you’ve been around here long enough you know I’m OK with that. In fact, I almost prefer a thick, dense, fudgy pancake. There’s a time and a place for fluffy pancakes. This is not it. Can we just talk about how insanely sexy these pancakes are!? You MUST, and I mean must top them with an actual peanut butter cup. It 100% makes it. I made mine following Sprouted Kitchen’s famous dark chocolate almond butter cups, only subbed peanut butter, and I highly recommend you do the same. They’re so, so good and get all melty, steamy and gooey on top of the cakes. It’s like frosting on a pancake. Who doesn’t want frosting on a pancake, really? You, raising your hand, get out of here. More pancakes for the rest of us! Enjoy.
