Cooking grain free food can be a learning curve. I always say gluten free is easy, especially these days when it seems to be a very fashionable way to eat, but grain free is hard. I see so many books and recipes and they just substitute gluten free flour blends for wheaten flour, but often, unless they add a whole lot of things you would not usually keep in a pantry, they can be disappointing. Part of this is that we expect things to taste a certain way, to have the same mouth feel as the wheaten foods we have grown up with, and that is a problem, the effect of gluten is replicatible to a certain degree, but not fully, and often a lot of things are added that are not ordinarily found in mainstream foods like carageen, xanthan gum, soy lecithin, etc. I don't ever put these things in my recipes, instead I try to encourage people to embrace a new normal. These pancakes are a point in fact, they do not have the loft of a wheaten pancake, and they are shorter to the bite, but they are delicious, nutritious and, for me, pain free. It is about letting go of your expectations and being open to new things. I always say that milk squeezed from a nut should not have to taste like milk squeezed from a cow, and this is just the same, pancakes made from wheaten flour, baking powder, butter, milk and egg will not be the same as pancakes made like these, but that does not make them less, just different, and we can all do with a bit of variety in our diet.
Don't those look delicious? And they were too.
Ingredients - makes 4 (serves 2)
1 very ripe banana
1 egg
1 tbs peanut butter (or other nut butter, I used an everything butter, hemp, almond, peanut, pumpkin, chia, sesame, sunflower and linseed)
2 tbs chickpea flour
1 tbs coconut flour
1 tsp baking powder
olive oil for frying
Mash the banana until quite smooth, mash in the egg and nut butter until well combined, mix together the dry ingredients and add to the banana mix, mix very well, let sit for five minutes for the flours to absorb some of the moisture, stir again and you are ready to go.
Now this is where grain free, all natural pancakes can get tricky, they are far more fragile than your wheaten pancakes, so you want a frying pan that you know will not stick, oil it well and keep your pancakes small enough that your egg slide will fit under the whole thing. Heat your pan to a lower medium heat, I used a three out of eight, pour in enough to make a three inch round, smooth the top out a little, cook until slightly past golden on one side, slide under your egg slide or spatula, lift, flip, cook other side, decant onto a plate, we have spoken before about gentleness in cooking, how the way we handle things effects our overall results, this time I want you to use your soft pastry chef hands, not, heavy basketballer hands, gentle, gentle. Pile your completed pancakes on a plate, top with whatever you desire (I used a little margarine as I can't eat butter) and enjoy.
