Pancakes As Big As Your Face

July 14, 2013 By Leanne Vogel November 27, 2018

Do you have a bucket list? You know, the things you want to be, do and experience while you’re still alive and kicking?

Besides touring Africa, diving off the coast of Thailand or living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, I have a couple of silly food-related dreams on my list.

Like…

• eating pancakes as big as my face
• visiting Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory (Johnny Depp style)
• making a 15lb Kit Kat bar, and
• preparing a breakfast of bacon and eggs on an iron in a hotel room

I doubt I’ll ever make it to Willy Wonka’s Factory but pancakes as big as my face? Heck yes. It happened. And in Billings Montana of all places?!

Stella’s Kitchen & Bakery is a little restaurant attached to the ClockTower Inn in downtown Billings, Montana.

When Kevin and I arrived at the cute little place, we were both expecting to be told that the gluten-free pancakes were store-bought, or made with loads of buttermilk, or couldn’t be prepared without nuts.

But to our surprise, Stella’s makes their OWN gluten-free flour mixture of rice flours and flax seeds. There is NO milk and NO nuts.

So, with the help of our lovely server, Ashley, we both ordered 2 monster gluten-free pancakes with syrup, strawberry sauce, bacon and fruit.

Sadly, our pancakes came out with butter on top (minor fail) but we both removed the butter quickly and wiped the tops clean. I’m sure we could have asked for a new order, but we decided not to.

The pancakes were fluffy, rich and delicious, like a real pancake should be. We were both absolutely floored with how delicious (and ginormous) they were.

I got through about 75% of my plate, and Kevin, about 50%. We packaged up the remainder and proceeded to snack on them for the next 2 days. Yes, 2 days.

While we were leaving, Kevin debated getting a ginormous cinnamon roll to go but decided that was crazy thinking.

I agreed.

After breakfast, we headed out to Red Lodge, about an hour drive from Billings.

We couldn’t leave Montana without getting on some horses and touring the mountains.

Montana feels so much like Alberta, in so many ways.

We both felt at home the further we got into our 2 hour ride with Elk River Outfitters.

The scenery was spectacular and the guys running the show were full of stories of the history of the land and Montana itself.

Just gorgeous, right?

Out of the 9 days we spent on the road, our visit to Billings was our favorite. There are so many different mountain ranges, the city is inviting, the people are friendly, and there were NO ticks! Unlike Minnesota. Boy, was that an experience… but that’s another story for another day.

Have you ever been to Montana?

Or, had pancakes the size of your face? We highly suggest it.

This entry was tagged: gluten-free travel, healthy travel, pancakes, travel, traveling with allergies