Our dairy free and gluten free Pumpkin Spice Pancakes combine the slight sweetness of brown sugar with the warmth of pumpkin pie spice. Top this with melty dairy free butter and maple syrup for the perfect fall breakfast!
I’m not sure what took me so long to make this recipe!
With all the other kinds of pancake recipes and pumpkin recipes I’ve created in the 9 years I’ve had this website, I’m not sure what took me so long to actually come up with a pumpkin spice pancake recipe. It seems like one of the first things that should have been on my list!
While I personally love pumpkin, I try not to make too many pumpkin spice recipes each fall so they don’t take over my website since I know that not everyone likes pumpkin. We usually make 1 or 2 pumpkin recipes each year and that feels pretty good, especially since I’ve been struggling to get posts up the past month…
Plus we want to keep it pretty well-rounded here for recipes, except for chocolate. I’m okay with having too many chocolate recipes on our website 😉
Our Pumpkin Spice Pancakes are gluten free, dairy free, vegan, and nut free depending on the type of ingredients you choose. These are delicious and would be so good paired with some cinnamon maple syrup (I’ve found that this particular brand is actually cheaper at Walmart if you can find it there).
How to make gluten free pumpkin spice pancakes
Our pumpkin spice pancakes are a version of our gluten free and dairy free buttermilk pancake recipe and we create our own “buttermilk” (more on that farther down in the post).
This recipe (like most pancake recipes) is pretty easy to make and it’s hard to mess up unless you overcook or burn your pancakes.
Don’t forget this is just a recap of steps, the full recipe card is at the end of the post. Let’s dive in!
- Preheat your griddle (I usually have mine at about 350-375)
- Whisk together the dry ingredients (gluten free flour through the salt) in a batter bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients (dairy free milk, oil or melted butter, pumpkin puree, brown sugar, and apple cider vinegar).
- Whisk the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and cook on the griddle.
- Serve with your favorite dairy free butter and pure maple syrup!
Depending on what kind of baking blend you’re using, you might have to add a little bit more dairy free milk if the pancake batter seems to be too thick. Some baking blends might end up more thick than others. You want this batter to be a little thick, but not too thick.
You’ll also want to make sure that you use a gluten free flour blend for this recipe that has xanthan gum in it or some other kind of binder. This will help bind the recipe together since it doesn’t have eggs in it (which normally act as a binder).
If you want to make pancakes without gluten free baking blends that don’t have xanthan gum, check out our other pancake recipes that don’t use gluten free flour blends.
For these pumpkin spice pancakes, we used the gluten free flour blend from King Arthur Flour. This works great, just make sure to check the allergen label since they have changed their allergen label recently.
If your baking blend already has salt or baking soda in it, omit or reduce the salt in this recipe so it doesn’t end up tasting overly salty. I ended up adding a little salt to my pancake batter and it still turned out fine, but I’d taste test your batter a little before adding salt if your 1-to-1 gluten free baking flour has salt in it already.
Why is there vinegar in these pumpkin pancakes?
Since our pumpkin pancakes are based off of our other gluten free buttermilk pancakes, this recipe will have vinegar in it just like the other one to make a type of homemade dairy free “buttermilk”.
Since we don’t have a dairy free buttermilk, we can make our own by adding 1 Tablespoon of either vinegar or lemon juice to 1 cup of dairy free milk. You can actually use this with real milk, too, if you need buttermilk in a pinch.
Homemade dairy free “buttermilk” won’t be as thick as regular dairy buttermilk (unless you use a pretty thick dairy free milk), but it will do the same thing in the recipe by chemically reacting with the baking soda to create bubbles in the batter to make it fluffier. Remember those grade school baking soda volcanos? Lots of bubbles!
Check out our other pumpkin spice recipes!
- Gluten Free Instant Pot Pumpkin Spice Oatmeal
- Gluten Free Dairy Free Pumpkin Spice Pancakes
- No Bake Pumpkin Pie
- Easy Crustless Pumpkin Pie
- Sugar Free Pumpkin Spice Creamer
- Vegan and Gluten Free Pumpkin Cheesecake
- Pumpkin Spice Rice Crispy Treats
- Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes
- Pumpkin Spice Donuts with Cinnamon Glaze
Gluten Free Pumpkin Spice Pancakes (Dairy Free)
Ingredients
- 2 cups 1-to-1 gluten free baking flour (I used King Arthur gluten free baking blend, but use a 1-to-1 flour blend that fits your allergies)
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
- ½ teaspoon salt (skip if your baking blend already has salt in it)
- 1 ½ cup + 2 Tablespoons rice milk (or other dairy free milk)
- ⅔ cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
- 2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar *
- ¼ cup melted dairy free butter** (or light tasting oil)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat your non-stick griddle (if using an electric griddle, set it to 350). If using a pan, preheat the pan over medium-low heat as you prepare your batter.
- Whisk together the gluten free flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt (if you're using) in a batter bowl.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the rice milk (or other dairy free milk), pumpkin, melted dairy free butter, vinegar, and vanilla.
- If you're using melted dairy free butter, make sure to warm up your rice milk a little bit to keep the DF butter melted as you mix it into the batter. If you add melted DF butter to cold rice milk it will immediately solidify into lumps.
- Whisk the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and pour the batter by 1/4 or 1/3 cupfuls onto the griddle or pan and cook on each side until lightly browned on each side. Remove to a cooling rack until all the pancakes are cooked.
- Serve warm with your favorite dairy free butter and pure maple syrup, apple butter, or pumpkin butter!
Notes
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie which she founded in 2011. Sarah is based in Wyoming and has been managing food allergies for herself and her 2 children for over 20 years. Sarah was also a certified personal trainer for 12 years, as well as a group fitness instructor, health coach, running coach, and fitness nutrition specialist.
I’ve been cooking GF for 8+ years. I don’t know what I did wrong but these were way to thick and when I added more liquid it didn’t help. I used 3 cups of liquid and they didn’t cook right. I used American Test Kitchens flour blend. Would love to know what went wrong.
Hi Jeanette, I suspect it’s the flour you used, it may absorb more liquid than the King Arthur Flour that I used and recommend in the recipe. Every gluten free flour blend is slightly different, but most commercial 1-to-1 blends work similarly (like King Arthur Flour and bob’s Red Mill). I looked up that America’s Test Kitchen flour blend recipe and I can’t guarantee that it will behave the same way as the commercial 1-to-1 gluten free flour I use since the ratios of starches and rice flour are completely different, plus that mix includes dry milk powder which we have never used in flour blends. This pancake batter is meant to be thicker than regular pancake batter made with eggs and wheat flour, but it shouldn’t be too thick to make into pancakes. I’m pretty certain it’s the flour blend you used.