Poor pancakes. They seem to have a bad wrap for folks dieting or trying to eat healthy. In general I try not to make any sweeping bans on whole categories of food. I’m a firm believer of everything in moderation (including moderation at some times) because I just can’t imagine giving up the joy of a steaming stack of pancakes eaten in comfy clothes with a cup of really good coffee on a relaxed weekend morning.
It’s really just a matter of finding the right balance of delicious and nutritious. Lucky for me, there’s a few such options in my recipe box (like Quinoa Banana Pancakes) including these Fruit & Nut Pancakes. I made them one cold day over Thanksgiving break when my husband’s teenage daughter was visiting and they were a hit. A few weeks later I went back to make them again and I couldn’t find the recipe anywhere. I torn apart the house looking for the magazine and when I couldn’t locate it, I scoured the internet (because really, can’t everything be found on the web?) but since I couldn’t remember the exact name of the recipe, I was coming up with lots of things that were close, but never an exact match.
Months went by and one day during a deep clean of the kitchen, a photocopied version of the recipe fell out of a book. The first thing that came to mind was that I knew what I was having for breakfast the next day. Closely behind that was that I wanted to do a blog to share the yumminess with all of you of course, but admittedly also so that I would never misplace it again.
- 1 cup whole-wheat flour
- ½ cup rolled oats
- ¼ cup sliced almonds, crushed walnuts or crushed pecans
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- 2 medium bananas
- 1 cup nonfat or almond milk (more if you prefer a thinner batter)
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1 cup mixed berries (frozen or fresh)
- Vegetable oil cooking spray
- In a bowl, combine first 5 ingredients. Mash bananas in another bowl and mix with milk, egg and almond extract. Pour liquid ingredients into dry ingredients; stir until smooth. Add berries.
- Warm a skillet over medium heat; coat with cooking spray. Measure 1⁄4 cup batter; pour onto skillet. Spread the batter out thinly to assure that they cook through. Cook until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes per side. Repeat until batter is gone.
I like to top my pancakes with a dollop of Greek yogurt, a light drizzle of real maple syrup and a few fresh berries. Delicious and guilt free. Seems like the perfect balance to me!