Happy Pancake Day! Or Shrove Tuesday- it’s six weeks to Easter (!) after today so time to get that last sweet treat if you’re giving up sugar or something else for Lent. Six long weeks without your favorite something; trust me you’re probably better off without an excess of sugar/bad fats/chocolate etc.!
So with that in mind I thought I’d do a blog post on a healthy alternative to traditional pancakes. My version of pancakes are refined sugar-free, wheat, egg and diary free! Or as my boyfriend likes to call them ‘fun free’, but they really are tasty and just as yummy as normal pancakes. Though I did make traditional pancakes, as seen in the picture above, as the boyfriend didn’t want my vegan pancakes!
Even though these pancakes are sugar-free you can add whatever topping you want to sweeten them up!
For the pancakes you will need:
1 x semi-ripe banana.
1 x cup of oats.
2 x tsp of peanut butter.
200 ml x almond or any other non-diary milk.
1 x tsp of cinnamon.
1 x tsp of baking powder.
Pinch of salt.
Start by chopping up the banana (you can add more banana’s dependent on how many pancakes you wish to make) and put it in a bowl or a plastic container.
Then add your oats, cinnamon and almond milk.
The ingredients should look like this. Also with adding peanut butter to the recipe it’s very hard not to lick the spoon as you add it to the mixture! I may or may not have had two spoon fulls of peanut butter after taking this photo!
You want to use a blender or a really good whisk to mix the ingredients until they form a smooth batter. When this is done heat some coconut oil on a small non-stick frying pan to heat up. It’s really important to have enough oil on the pan and the pan hot enough to make the pancakes. You might have to re-oil the pan when you flip your pancakes or you are adding more batter to make more pancakes.
Spread the mixture out so it reaches the sides of the non-stick pan. My pancake got a little bit crumpled up as I tried to smooth out the batter. Even though the name of this post is ‘pancake perfection’ your pancakes don’t have to be perfect!
Keep checking the sides of the pancake and when you think it’s ready to flip it over, flip it over! These pancakes take about two to three minutes to cook on each side, dependent on the thickness of the batter.
Mine broke up when I flipped it but it doesn’t really matter because the pancakes are still yummy even if they are not perfectly round. Not everything in blog world is perfect, especially cooking, so it’s nice to see imperfections sometimes to!
Now to the best bit…the toppings!
As I said earlier you can make these sweet if you want to by adding numerous toppings. One option is the old favorite of golden syrup.
Or desiccated coconut if you’re completely avoiding refined sugars.
I also added cinnamon, peanut butter, nuts and seeds and some orange to my pancakes. I also made ‘normal’ pancakes for my boyfriend. I simply whisked together one egg, 1 1/2 cups of plain flour and 1 tsp of baking powder to create the batter and fried them like I did with my vegan pancakes.
Whilst I’m not vegan I love these pancakes as they are lighter and fluffier than your traditional flour based pancakes. Handy if you want a light yet filling breakfast without feeling you have eaten your own body weight in pancakes!
Hope you like these recipe’s and don’t forget to tweet or Instagram me if you try your own version of these, I’d love to see them! Happy pancake eating!