Faux Mcgriddles

[Roda]

My oldest son was ranting and raving about Mcgriddles from Mcdonalds that he had at a friends house. I have had them before gluten free and thought, "self I can make these at home." I used my recipe for buckwheat/brown rice pancakes. We stir in cinnamon chips so I thought this would be great since the ones you buy have syrup chips in them. I sprayed some of my wide mouth canning rings and placed them on my griddle and poured the batter in. When it started to bubble and look dull I pulled the rings off, let them cook a little bit longer and then flipped. Perfect round thick pancakes fit for a sandwich. I suppose I didn't need to go to all that trouble, but to a 9 1/2 year old looks and presentation is everything (had to make it look real! ). I cooked up some Swaggerty's sausage patties and eggs. I did drizzle a little bit of maple syrup on the sausage/egg before toping with the other pancake. Boy were they good! Jack told me I did good and ate it right up and wants more for breakfast in the morning. I got one happy kid.

[TrillumHunter]

GOOD FOR YOU! I do this all the time, and it's always a hit. It's a bit more trouble, but it helps the kids to know it is possible to eat like there peers. Although their friends who had the "real" thing usually say mine in better.

My son has a friend over and we're having Chick-fil-a.

I'll be trying this McGriddle thing myself as I like syrup on my sausage.

[Roda]

I try to do fun things like this for the kids and myself since we do not go out to eat hardly ever. If the boys ever have to be gluten free in the future, at least they know there is good stuff to eat. They eat any/all meals I cook gluten free, but they still do eat gluten cereals, bread, crackers etc. The McGriddle he had last week was the first gluten pancake he has had in probably more than a year. He really likes my pancakes. My mom even likes them and she hated the buckwheat pancakes she had as a kid. I think the key to the recipe I use is that it is 1/2 buckwheat flour and 1/2 brown rice flour.I think it tones down it's strong taste.

[Glutin-Free Man]

I did something similar a couple weeks ago, and have been exploring it since. I was at my parents' cottage, so didn't have access to my normal pantry, and I ran out of bread. I thought "OK, no problem, I don't eat bread very often anyway."

Then I remembered that I'd promised to make salmon patties for the family for dinner that night, and they not only require a bread crumb coating on the outside (no problem, I can use cornmeal), but they also require bread crumbs in the middle to help hold them together. Oops. We're over 30 miles from the nearest large city, so buying gluten-free bread is a possibility, but not easy.

I had just picked up a package of Bob's Red Mill gluten-free flour mix, so I figured I could make some bread, except I didn't pack any Xanthum Gum, so that'd also be a trip to the city.

What other options are there? Aha! I can make pancakes with the Bob's Red Mill -- those don't need Xanthum Gum to hold together!

So I made some pancakes with no sugar in them, cut up about 1/2 of them and added them to the salmon patties, They turned out fine, but I like them better with bread crumbs than with cornmeal coating.

I was left with the other 1/2 of the pancakes I'd made, but no bread. So I tried making a sandwich from the leftovers, and it turned out pretty good.

I ate the rest of the pancakes as sandwich bread, and liked it so much that I tried it again with waffles after we got home.

I've been using pancakes and waffles for sandwich bread for the past two weeks now, and am enjoying it more and more. It's so much quicker and easier than making a whole loaf of bread, and it doesn't start to crumble after a couple days like most of the gluten-free breads I've been making lately.

I think I like waffles better overall - they especially good if you toast them a bit first, to restore the crispiness. We make standard waffles, not the Belgian kind, so there are a lot of little holes to grab fillings, but they're not so deep that it's hard to spread them.

I've tried cold cuts, peanut butter & jelly, and egg salad sandwiches so far. They're all great, but I think the PB&J sandwiches are the best.

Now I think I need to go out & get some dairy free ice cream, and try a waffle sundae...