Banana Pikelets

I'm not what you would call a morning person. If given the choice between 10 more minutes in bed or getting up eating a banana and coffee before heading to work; bed will win every time. What this does mean though, is that the end of each week I have several overripe bananas to do something with. A great tip I learnt is that you can freeze bananas whole in their own skin (low effort solution for the win!).

Recently while scrummaging through the freezer I discovered about a dozen bananas taking up precious space so decided to go on a banana baking spree (apologies in advance if you are looking for a banana free recipe!). 

This is the first of several banana recipes; a easy, quick breakfast that can be made in advance or while hovering in the kitchen with a mug of coffee.

If you are looking for a sugar-free option, just leave it out. Bananas are normally sweet enough, I just went for the caramel flavour that brown sugar brings. If you decide to substitute a a natural sugar syrup (such as agave), reduce the amount of milk so that your batter is the right consistency. Similarly if you are lactose intolerant you can easily substitute the with another type of milk; coconut milk would make a delicious summery flavour.

Ingredients

• 3 bananas, mashed (or if using frozen ones, just defrost)
• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 100ml milk
• pinch salt

Method

1. Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix to combine. Make sure to press any lumps out of the brown sugar.
2. Add the banana, egg and about half the milk and beat to combine. You want to mixture to be quite runny (accepting that there will be lumps of banana), so keep adding more milk until you reach the right consistency.
3. Leave the mix while setting up your frypan so that the baking powder can react and make the mixture fluffy (thanks goes to Veggie Mama for this tip). Leave it for a maximum for of 30 minutes.
4. Heat a frypan on a medium-low heat and grease either with butter or canola oil (or any other tasteless oil). 
5. Drop dessert spoon sized spoonfuls of the batter into the pan and wait for bubbles to start to appear on the surface (about 2 minutes). 
6. Flip the pikelet and cook for a further 1-2 minutes until both sides are a golden brown. It may take a few flips to get into the swing of things, but there is plenty of mixture.

Serve with a sliver of butter like me, or you could try peanut butter, nutella, maple syrup, coconut milk or anything that goes well with banana.

Glutton