What is a Sunday without pancakes? Just another day of the week that ends in ‘y’, obviously.

When I was growing up, there was always a flurry of excitement when pikelets entered the house. Pikelets are really pancakes, but Down Under pancakes are the size of a small dinner plate, whereas pikelets are a neat, manageable handful. Each member of my family pretty much eats them the same way; slathered in peanut butter, or toasted and slathered in peanut butter.

It wasn’t until much later in life that I learned the ‘proper’ way of eating them in Australia is with golden syrup, and by then it was too late – the lifelong habit of eating savoury goods with these little gems had stuck. Eventually I happened upon the Canadian way of eating them with bacon and maple syrup, and it became a close second to the peanut butter breakfast rally.

Of course, making pancakes is pretty simple, but the primary ingredient is flour. Not only do I rarely keep flour in the house (there’s a bad weevil experience behind that), but one of my good friends has recently been diagnosed with both IBS and coeliac disease, and it has been my mission over the past few weeks to look at things she can eat, which is trickier than you might expect.

Coeliac disease is at least consistent, although painful: no gluten, which means no wheat, barley, rye, spelt, flour derived from any of those, nothing that has come into contact with gluten products. Restrictive, but straightforward. Lots of things are marked gluten-free and the label will generally tell you if gluten is present in the product.

IBS is a whole different beast. Following the FODMAP diet seems to help her, but it’s difficult to remember what to avoid. It’s also supremely tough to eat out when you have to avoid onion and garlic and that’s present in almost everything in a commercial kitchen.

I wanted to try out a recipe that would help my buddy put the spark back into her Sunday breakfast. So here it is: taken from about.com, these almond flour pancakes are gluten-free, IBS-friendly, low-carb, easy and very filling.

I probably did not need to eat all four pancakes, but hey, it’s a Sunday.

Almond flour pancakes (makes 4)
Half a cup of almond flour
1 egg
10 drops of liquid stevia (you can substitute with liquid sucralose or just use half a tablespoon of sugar)
1/8 cup of water
1 tablespoon oil
small sprinkle of salt

Warm your non-stick frying pan over medium heat whilst you mix all ingredients together.

Place two tablespoons of mixture into the pan. The good thing about this is that it doesn’t spread far, so if your pan is big enough you can do two at a time.

The pancake needs about 2-3 minutes on the first side before you flip it. They don’t really bubble the same way a pancake does, but you’ll know when it’s ready to turn because the edges will become lighter as they cook – once the pancake has a white ring all the way around, it’s ok to flip. It will need about a minute on the other side.

Serve with bacon, peanut butter or if you must, drizzled with golden syrup, and relish the Sunday-morning feeling.

A note about cooking for coeliacs: this is probably an obvious point but if you’re cooking for a coeliac, make sure the pan, all your utensils and crockery are ultra-squeaky-clean. The slightest bit of gluten can make them seriously ill.