Weekend Brunch #2: Banana and Peanut Butter Pancake Stack

A couple of weeks ago, we visited The (Infamous) Breakfast club near Spittlefields market. Of course we were seated in about 30seconds because it was a Friday night at 10pm.

Following a long hard night of professional networking (during which we snacked liberally on canapes), we decided we would take advantage of their late night breakfast options (who doesn’t like breakfast for dinner?) and stepped in for a “light snack” before going home. This quickly escalated to a full vegetarian breakfast for our friend (who had said, several times before we arrived, “I’m not hungry, I’m just going to have a cocktail, honestly“), and a sizeable stack of pancakes topped with crispy bacon between me and CB with an extremely small ramekin of maple syrup on the side. (We asked for a top up three times.)

As we tucked into our respective dishes, we began to get a bit philosophical about the culinary sweet spot between sweet and salty – bacon and pancakes, sweet and salty popcorn, honey roasted ham – all winners. But how can you introduce the same element of sweet and salty into a pancake dish without making it meaty?

Of course, we thought suddenly, peanut butter. You’ll know from our previous posts that we are no strangers to using peanut butter in the kitchen. This recipe, a humble adaption of this one from Cookie and Kate, uses it in it’s most simple form – straight out of the jar and onto your plate.

Serves 2-3 (makes about 8 pancakes)

Ingredients

1 tsp margarine
1 tsp olive oil
2 large ripe bananas, chopped (plus extra to serve)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tsp maple syrup (plus extra to serve)
2 eggs
80g rolled oats (cheap porridge oats will do – not the instant kind)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
splash of milk
peanut butter (to serve)

Method

1. In a mixing bowl add the margarine, oil, bananas, lemon juice and maple syrup. Mash the mixture with a fork until the bananas are completely broken down. Crack the eggs into the bowl and beat them with the fork.
2. In a separate bowl, use a hand blender to break the oats down into a flour. Mix in the salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and bicarbonate of soda.
3. Create a well in the flour and add in the wet ingredients from the other bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon just until everything is wet. Leave the batter aside for 10 minutes (longer will do no harm).
4. Heat a large, non-stick frying pan and grease with butter/oil/calorie spray. When the pan is hot enough (if a splash of water sizzles) add a splash of milk to the pancake batter and use a 1/4 cup of batter per pancake. Cook each pancake for no more than 3 minutes on the first side, flip and cook over for another 90 seconds. Keep the cooked pancakes warm in the oven.
5. Assemble the pancakes in a stack, with a thin layer of peanut butter between each cake. Top with some sliced banana and maple syrup.

Taking this one over to Fiesta Friday! Love that link up party 🙂