Simple Grain Free Banana Breakfast Cakes

So the other day my fellow Swim Bike Mom friend, Katherine, posted to my wall asking me if I had given her a recipe that she found delicious.  The recipe was as follows:
One egg, one banana, fry in butter and top with cinnamon and sugar.  Simple enough.  But I did not give her such recipe.

However, I have been craving pancakes for weeks.  Now that I’m mostly gluten free, my pancake options are limited.  I can make them myself at home from some yucky weird gluten free mix that is probably not very nutritious and full of empty rice flour calories and sodium.  I can make my Goat Crunch Cakes (or whatever the heck I named them at the time).  They are good, but not quite the light fluffy pancakes I have been wanting.  I have found one restaurant where they are amazing.  Stone Soup Kitchen in Atlanta makes vegan, gluten free, cornmeal blueberry pancakes.  They rock.  But it’s always so busy on the weekend, and well, we’re just too lazy to drive there and then have to wait.  Plus, they use the standard Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Flour blend, which is fine, but not super nutritionally in my opinion.

So I remembered Katherine’s recipe which had stuck on my mind. I had some icky looking bananas on the counter; a fridge full of organic brown eggs; and I had a 20 miler on the horizon and could use a substantial, yet not heavy breakfast to fuel me.  And thus, this recipe was born.

I tweaked it a bit to suit my needs.  The pancakes came out sweet, light, and dare I say – fluffy!  And all without any icky ingredients!  Plus, they took no time at all.  I ate about half the batch

And I paired it with a very light homemade green beverage packed with antioxidants and chia seeds to fuel my run (I call it my homemade Goatorade)!

Enjoy!

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 cup mashed ripe organic banana (mine were brown spotted on the outside, but still firm on the inside. I don’t think it’d be good with the super mushy ripe ones)
2. 2 large organic eggs
3. A little baking powder (make sure it’s aluminum free…and it’s probably about an 1/8 of a teaspoon…I don’t have an 1/8 measuring spoon, but I used about half of my 1/4 measuring spoon…)
4. One Tablespoon of organic brown sugar (I actually probably didn’t need to add it, but it was delicious either way.  Again, I didn’t measure precisely… I just stuck my hand in the bag and grabbed a little.  Seemed like a tablespoon to me)
5. A good dash of cinnamon (Sorry, as you can guess, I don’t know how much…it was a few dashes)
6. One Tablespoon of Almond Flour (You probably could get away with it without this, but I haven’t tried it without)

Directions:

First I took my banana (I started with one small one and ended up using about one and a half small ones) and mashed it with a fork in the measuring cup until I had it pretty mashed up and had a half a cup.

Did you all see that article that a Japanese study found that brown spotted bananas can help combat cancer cells??? Who knows if it’s legit, but this recipe will make you want to eat brown spotted bananas regardless 😉

I put this in my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer and added all of the other ingredients.  You could also probably just beat by hand as well…but I’m lazy and I have this fancy device, so I might as well use it!  Plus I think it helped make them fluffy because the Kitchen Aid isn’t lazy and beat the hell out of it.

I meant to take a picture of the batter, but when I remembered to, this was all that was left 😉

While it’s beating, heat your pan or griddle over low-medium heat.  Grease with some coconut oil or your spray of choice.

Once it was all thoroughly mixed and my pan was heated, pour in batter.  These cook best over lower heat…so just be patient!  Also they come out much better in small pancakes – think IHOP silver dollar size 😉

You’ll probably have to wait at least 5 minutes or so for the first side to get done (at least on your first batch when the pan is still heating…)….when you note the sides firming up and some bubbles on top…then flip and cook through to your liking on the other side.

OK not the best picture, but you get it!

I found these really good plain….but if you want add some pure maple syrup, or as I ate the later, topped with walnuts and bananas.  You could also top with mini dark chocolate chips or some pureed fruit and they’d be awesome.

I’m proud that I took decent pictures this time, so you’ll get more pictures than you need ….

I ate the rest of the batch at room temperature out of the fridge by hand – like little cakes – the next day and they were delicious!

Enjoy!

I think I finally took a good looking food picture!!!