Vegan Banana Pancakes - Mammy Made

Adele is here from Mammy Made, today...

Hi everyone. I'm Adele and I live in England with my two gorgeous babies, Leyla who is 4 and Naomie who is 2. I am so excited to be contributing to Inspiration Cafe again today!

I usually blog over at Mammy Made. I like to write about crafting, cooking and homeschooling, although I am only homeschooling part time at the minute. I have tons of tutorials on there so come by and say hi, I’d love to see you! I am also currently blogging about growing vegetables in my small back yard so come and check that out if you would like to give it a go :)

This month I would like to share a yummy pancake recipe I came up with last Summer. Before making the pancakes, I looked around a bit at other recipes. I had never cooked vegan before so I didn't really know where to start. There is a LOT of choice for substituting eggs and milk but in the end I went with mashed banana to substitute the egg and homemade almond milk (which I will put a recipe for at the end of the post) to substitute the milk. (I have since made this recipe using only water and it was still scrummy!) I also added baking powder and a little bit of sugar since most of the recipes I found had some in.

Vegan Banana Pancakes (serves 4):

2 unpacked cups plain flour

2½ tsps baking powder

1 tbsp sugar

½ tsp vanilla extract

2 x ripe bananas, mashed (makes just over 1/2 cup mashed banana)

¾ cup almond milk

¾ cup water

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and sugar. In another smaller bowl, mix together the vanilla extract, mashed banana, almond milk and water. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry bowl and mix to combine. Don't be too worried about getting all the lumps out. I mixed mine until just combined with a fork and they came out lovely. The mixture will be thicker than a 'normal' pancake batter but so long as it is still pourable then just go with it. For bigger pancakes you could add more water or milk but you need the batter to be a bit thick for the mini ones so they hold their shape whilst cooking.

Heat some olive oil in a large frying pan and drop the batter into the pan (I made each pancake with two tbsps of batter spread around a little into a rough circle just to help them cook a little quicker). Fry on one side until bubbles appear then flip. Cook for a few mins on the other side and serve hot or cold. I managed to get 16 mini pancakes out of my batter, which was plenty for me and the kids with some spare!

I served ours with fresh fruit which made them taste sooo sweet but they would be lovely served with honey and lemon or even more sugar sprinkled on top. My brother had some with chocolate sauce and they are so nice plain aswell. Bear in mind though that some toppings may not be vegan if that is how you prefer to eat them.

Homemade Almond Milk

1 cup almonds (preferably raw)

water for soaking

3 dates, pitted

3 cups water

½ - 1tsp vanilla extract

Soak the nuts in a covered container in the fridge for about 6 hours. After soaking, discard the dirty water and rinse well. In a blender, mix together the almonds, 3 cups fresh water and the dates. Blend until smooth then strain through a muslin. Add vanilla extract to taste. Store in a covered container in the fridge for about 3 days. Shake well before using.

I hope you all enjoyed this recipe. I hope some of you try the pancakes and enjoy them! Thank you so much to everyone behind Inspiration Cafe for letting me contribute again. It's been fun!