Almond Flour Banana Pancakes

Breakfast on Sunday

Vicki Smith, pastel

Hello,

Every culture seems to have a signature pancake. Pancakes can be savory or sweet, made from a batter or dough, fluffy like a souffle or paper thin, made of flour, corn, fermented rice, or even beans. They can be cooked on a lightly oiled, hot griddle or deep-fried. They can be small like silver dollars or the size of a dinner plate. The Chinese have scallion pancakes, Americans eat buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup, Eastern Europeans eat blintzes with sour cream, the French have Crêpes dusted with powdered sugar, in Venezuela and Columbia they have maize flour cachapas, and in Southern India, they serve dosas with chutney. Most are relatively easy to make, but the breakfast variety fits the bill for a leisurely Sunday morning. My husband insists on “real” maple syrup and has been known to show up at the local diner with his own bottle. We tried tapping one of our large maple trees, with the help of a maple syrup-producing neighbor, unsuccessfully a few years ago. It is a tricky and laborious process once the sap runs, hence its price tag.

Children enjoy helping to make pancakes as well as consuming them, which may be why several popular children's books feature them. Tomie dePaola’s Pancakes for Breakfast and Eric Carle’s Pancakes, Pancakes! both feature tales of missing ingredients and mishaps on the way to putting a stack of cakes on the table. The books are distinctive in their illustration styles and telling of their stories. Tomie dePaola uses his signature depictions of folksy characters rendered in simple shapes and a cozy color palette with no text needed to move the story forward. Eric Carle’s singular collage illustrations draw us into his world of texture and bright colors with visits to the barn, the mill, and the woods to gather the necessary ingredients for Jack’s busy mother to make him pancakes. Both men are giants in the world of children’s books.

The recipe is from the back of the bag of Bob’s Red Mill Natural Almond Flour. The only change that I made was thinning the batter with some milk and oiling the griddle.

Recipe

Ingredients

1-2 T. corn oil

2 cups almond flour

1/2 t. sea salt

1/2 t. baking soda

2 t. cinnamon

1 cup mashed bananas (2 bananas)

3 eggs

1/3 to 1/2 c. milk

Directions

5 servings, 10 pancakes

Preheat a skillet to medium. Brush the griddle with corn oil. In a small bowl combine almond flour, sea salt, baking soda, and cinnamon. In a separate large bowl, whisk together mashed bananas, eggs, and milk until thoroughly combined. Add dry ingredients to wet and mix well. Add additional milk as needed. Ladle 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake onto the griddle. Cook for about four minutes and then flip, cooking an additional 4-5 minutes until no longer wet in the center. Serve with warm maple syrup.

For additional pancake varieties from around the world check out these always-charming and informative newsletters. Ruth Stroud at Ruth Talks Food writes about blintzes, including several recipes, and their connection to her Jewish heritage. Samantha Childress at Caravanserai writes about how her family maintained their Scandinavian holiday traditions when she was growing up in the United States and includes a recipe link for potato lefse from Norway. Jolene Handy reminds us about the influence of Jackie Kennedy and Julia Child in introducing Americans to French cuisine in Time Travel Kitchen with a classic crêpe recipe.

Do you have a favorite pancake recipe?

Thanks for reading!

Vicki