Cooking 4 Life - Banana Pancakes – heavenly hotcakes!

We’ve talked about breakfast before (the best scrambled eggs), but there’s one treat that people seem to love, day or night.  Pancakes! Admit it, you’ve thought about how amazing pancakes would be for dinner, heck, you might’ve even tried them for dinner. 

But the best part about pancakes, besides being absolutely delicious, is that they’re incredibly fun.  You can make almost any imaginable shape, use any filling you choose, and stack them as high as you want.  When you were a kid, did your dad make you mouse pancakes?  What was your fondest memories or pancakes?  I bet you’ve thought of at least two memories just reading that last sentence. So, without further ado, here's our 6th Cooking4Life recipe. 

How To Make The Perfect Pancake

There are many different mixes and even cans of pre-made pancake material.  Most mixes require adding oil or eggs, but for those who want to make it from scratch, it’s not too difficult.  You only need:

• ·         2 large eggs
• ·         1 cup of milk
• ·         3 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• ·         1 ½ cups unbleached all-purpose flour
• ·         ¾ teaspoon salt
• ·         ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon
• ·         2 teaspoons baking powder
• ·         2 tablespoons sugar
• ·         Several ripe (or evenly overly ripe) bananas, preferably organic, cut about ¼ inch thick

Organic Banana Pancakes!

Some people believe organic fruit is a way to charge people more, but there are a few items of fruit that you can easily tell the difference between organic and regular fruit.  One of these fruits is banana (another is apple).  Using very ripe bananas lets the banana actually melt into the pancake, while still creating a caramelization when the pancake heats on the pan. 

Mix the ingredients in a bowl, with the eggs and milk first, then vegetable oil, salt, baking powder and sugar and flour.  The key to making the best pancakes is to let the mixture sit for about 20 minutes while the batter thickens.  Then, on a medium high heat create your shape or pancake.  Depending on the size of the pancake, you may need to flip your pancake faster than the traditional 1 ½ - 2 minutes that is the standard.

Some people take pancake making to a whole new artform.  Check out the video below: