Vegan Chocolate Chunk Pancakes

Vegan chocolate chunk pancakes – the most delicious breakfast treat! Light, fluffy, packed full of dark chocolate and smothered in sticky maple syrup! Yes please!

Weekend breakfasts are one of my favourite things. You’ve got coffee on the go, you’re still in your pyjamas and there’s no rush. It’s bliss. And these vegan chocolate chunk pancakes make it even better. They’re super simple to put together, so quick and so so tasty! They don’t need any fancy ingredients, and you can customise them to your liking if you prefer milk or white chocolate! So let’s get making.

Key Ingredients You’ll Need

Plant Milk – What makes these pancakes so light and fluffy is the addition of ‘buttermilk’. Traditionally buttermilk is the liquid that is left behind after cream has been churned to create butter. Obviously not many of us are churning our own butter anymore, so supermarkets have created a ready-made version. The supermarket version is a lot thicker than traditional buttermilk, and personally I don’t love using it. Especially as you can actually make it yourself without needing to churn butter first! Combining lemon juice with milk and leaving it to sit for a few minutes, will give you the slightly sour liquid you need. Of course as these are vegan pancakes, you will need to use a plant milk, and thankfully it works exactly the same! I used oat milk, but I would advise using soy or pea protein milk too.
Carbonated Water – Yes, you read that right. We’re using carbonated water as an egg replacement in these pancakes, as it gives us the moisture and aeration that we need to make fluffy, light pancakes. I’ve only recently been experimenting with carbonated water in vegan baking, but so far I’m loving the results!
Dark Chocolate – The chocolate is really the star of the show in these pancakes. so choose your favourite brand! And as always, I recommend using a chocolate bar rather than chips or chunks, and then chopping it yourself. The chocolate will be better quality, and it’ll get melty and gooey!

close up shot of stack of vegan chocolate pancakes

How to make vegan chocolate chunk pancakes

I love pancakes for their ease. Generally you have everything in the cupboard/fridge already, and the toppings can be whatever you want! They’re so customisable, and everyoneeee loves them. Developing a vegan version was so easy, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference! So lets make breakfast!

Making the pancake batter

The first step for our pancake batter is to make the plant buttermilk by combining milk and lemon juice in a small jug or bowl. You should see the milk look a little curdled – this is expected, so don’t worry! Set it aside while you continue prepping the batter, and when you come back to it, it should be a little lumpy and slightly thickened.

The next step is to add all the dry ingredients into a large bowl. That’s your plain flour, baking powder, caster sugar and a pinch of salt. I like to give this a brief whisk, just to evenly disperse the baking powder through the mix. Then you can pour in the wet ingredients. The plant buttermilk, carbonated water and oil. Using the whisk again, whisk all the ingredients together until you have a smooth batter.

This is another reason why I love this pancake recipe so much, because its SO simple. You don’t need to get out any fancy equipment – just a bowl and a whisk. And to be honest, if you didn’t have a whisk and only had a spatula, that would work just as well. But lets get back to our final and most important step….the chocolate!

As I said above, I personally prefer to use a bar of chocolate and chop it up myself. You get a much better quality chocolate this way and it melts properly!! Chocolate chips/chunks have stabilisers in so they don’t melt…which is great for a chocolate chip muffin, but we want delicious melty oozy pools of chocolate. So get that chocolate chopped and stir it into your pancake batter. Then you’re ready to go.

Cooking the pancake batter

Cooking pancakes honestly couldn’t be easier, you simply dollop a little of the batter into a pan, let it cook for a few minutes, flip it over and voila. A delicious fluffy pancake! But I will share a few tips;

Make sure your pan isn’t too hot! The first pancake is always a bit of a tester, but I find keeping to a medium temperature is best.
Lightly oil your pan in between batches. This makes sure your pancakes don’t get stuck! You only need a little drizzle, but it does the trick.
Don’t flip too soon! Wait until you can see air bubbles reach the surface of your pancakes before you flip them over. That way you won’t end up with a sloppy mess in the pan!
Don’t crowd the pan! Only cook 2 or 3 pancakes together at the same time. It’ll make it much easier to flip them, and makes sure they don’t spread into each other.

Once all the pancakes are cooked, stack them high on a plate and drizzle over maple syrup! Delish!

chocolate chunks in vegan pancake batter in bowl

vegan chocolate chunk pancake batter in bowl

Tips & Tricks

Why are my vegan pancakes dense?

When you’re working with flour, you always want to make sure you’re not over mixing. The more you mix, the more you’re working the gluten in the flour which will give you a denser bready texture. So long as you only mix the batter until it’s just combined, your pancakes should be light and fluffy.

I don’t like dark chocolate, can I add something else?

Absolutely! Pancakes are so versatile to add-ins. You could add a different chocolate, or even add a spoonful of jam or chocolate spread to the middle.

I’m feeding a crowd! Can I double the recipe?

Yes!! My top tip for making large quantities of pancakes, is to turn the oven onto a low setting and pop the cooked pancakes on a baking tray inside. This way they’ll keep warm while you make the rest of the batch!

Vegan chocolate chunk pancakes may not be the most challenging of recipes, but boy are they one of the tastiest! They’re light, fluffy, sooo chocolatey and drizzled in maple syrup they’re the perfect weekend breakfast. And you can absolutely be making and eating within the hour! Bliss!