Pancakes are not bad for you – not if they’re made this way! 🙂 For these pancakes, I’ve used two gluten-free flours that are nutritious and loaded with high-quality protein: buckwheat and amaranth. Amaranth is a good source of dietary fibre and minerals including iron and magnesium. It has an assertive taste, so it’s best used in combination with other flours. Buckwheat, despite its name, is not related to wheat. It contains high levels of complex carbohydrates – giving these pancakes a low GI rating – and is rich in B vitamins, potassium, phosphorus, iron, and magnesium.

Recipe

The quantities used here makes two medium-sized pancakes and serves one. I’ve used Australian metric measures, where 1 tablespoon equals 20 mL capacity. If you wish to double the recipe, use 1/3 cup each of the flours (4 tablespoons is roughly 1/3 of a cup – i.e. 80 mLs).

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp buckwheat flour
• 2 tbsp amaranth flour
• 1/2 tsp gluten-free baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1 small (or 1/2 a large) ripe banana, mashed
• 1/4 cup water
• olive oil to grease fry pan

Method

1. Mix the dry ingredients so they’re thoroughly combined
2. In a  separate bowl, whisk the egg, water and mashed banana
3. Whisk the wet ingredients with the dry ingredients until mixed through, and set mixture aside for 5 minutes
4. In the meantime, heat a fry pan over medium heat and lightly brush with olive oil
5. If making the quantity for one person, ladle half (otherwise a quarter if you’ve doubled the amounts) the mixture into the heated pan. The pan has to be hot enough for the first pancake to come out fluffy.
6. When you see bubbles on the surface (after 1–2 minutes), flip the pancake over and cook the other side. This will take about another minute.
7. Cook the remaining batter as described in steps 5 and 6 above, and enjoy with fresh,organic berries and maple syrup

Variations

• To make this recipe vegan, you could omit the egg, but the pancake will not hold that well – it will be crumbly. Egg acts as the binder.
• Instead of water, you could use rice or oat milk
• Once you become familiar with other grain-based flours, you can play around with this recipe – for example, you could replace the amaranth with brown rice flour, but the resulting pancake will be dense and not very fluffy. I haven’t tried it with quinoa flour, but if you do let me know how you go.
• You’ll notice that I haven’t used any sugar in this recipe. The banana acts as the sweetener and gives the pancake added moisture. Instead of banana, you could use a couple of tablespoons of cooked apple puree.