Adventures with Mushy Bananas – Part 1

In part one of the series on how not to waste spotted bananas, I decided to tackle pancakes. Classic and universally appealing, they whip up quickly enough for a weekday breakfast and are special enough for a weekend brunch. Most importantly, they don’t require a trip to the grocery store for any special ingredients.

The goal: incorporate bananas in such a way so as to maximize their flavor without compromising the pancake’s featherweight texture.

I immediately rejected the idea of mashing the bananas and mixing them into the batter. Getting the liquid-to-dry-ingredient ratio just right seemed tedious and I could imagine the resulting batter cooking up wet and heavy without some serious leavening adjustments.

Instead I decided to take a page from my father-in-law’s blueberry pancake making technique: pour the batter onto the hot griddle and place the fruit on top of the pancakes as they cook. Flip, cook some more and eat.

The only question remaining was what kind of batter to use: instant? classic? buttermilk?

Nick and I tend to reject cooking with pre-made mixes. Our experience with them has produced mediocre results: pancakes that are so rubbery they snap back and smack you in the face or are so cottony and tasteless that they must be accompanied by a very tall glass of milk. If anyone has a favorite mix that produces good results, I’d love to hear about it. Until then…rejected.

I also don’t usually keep buttermilk on hand. And since I wanted to be able to make these on a moment’s notice without a trip to the store, this idea is also…rejected.

The solution, by process of elimination, would have to be a quick-bread batter. Mark Bittman to the rescue! In How to Cook Everything (a modern-day Joy of Cooking) he offers several pancake recipes. Turns out the basic pancake recipe with one slight modification works best.

Beating the egg whites before adding them to the batter (our secret technique) isn’t necessary, but it makes for significantly lighter pancakes.

Nick loves being my photo guinea pig

Here’s the final recipe, which IMHO comes close to breakfast nirvana.

Banana Pancakes
Serves 4 to 6

2 c flour
1 tbs baking powder
½ tsp salt
1 tbs sugar
2 eggs
1 ½ c milk
2 tbs melted butter
1-2 bananas, sliced into ¼-inch rounds

Preheat a large skillet over medium-low heat while you make the batter.

Combine the dry ingredients. Separate the eggs and beat the yolks into 1 ½ cups of milk, then stir in the butter. Gently combine with the dry ingredients, mixing only enough to moisten the flour – not one stir more! (Seriously, don’t worry about a few lumps; they make for fluffier pancakes.)

Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form and stir them gently into the batter.

Add a little butter to your skillet. When the foaming subsides start adding your batter. Place a few rounds of banana directly on the surface of the cooking batter and press them in a bit. Turn carefully and cook a little more slowly than you would other pancakes. The bananas will sizzle and brown as the batter cooks.

If you want to cook the whole batch before serving them, you can keep the pancakes hot in a 200-degree oven for up to 20 minutes. Be sure to place them in a single layer, otherwise they’ll get soggy.

Serve with warm maple syrup.

Yum!

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