Banana Bread Pancakes

Banana Bread Pancakes

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you took banana bread batter and instead of putting it in a loaf pan, you just griddled it like a pancake? Well, welcome, because that’s exactly what happened here. I took my famous brown butter banana bread recipe, made a few tweaks so it wouldn’t be a cast-iron catastrophe, and created soft, decadent banana bread pancakes that are so tender and moist that a fork practically falls through them. Banana bread meets banana pancakes: Nothing could be better.

Yield: Makes 3 to 4 servings

¼ cup/57 grams salted butter, plus more for griddling and serving

3 large/390 grams very ripe bananas

¼ cup 50 grams dark brown sugar

¼ cup 50 grams granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup/140 grams all-purpose flour

1 cup/100 grams oat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon kosher salt, such as Diamond Crystal

Maple syrup, for serving

In a small pot or pan, melt ¼ cup butter over medium and cook for 2 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the milk solids are golden and toasted.

Meanwhile, in a large bowl, mash up the bananas. It doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth, a few chunks are good. Pour the browned butter into the bowl with the bananas. Enjoy how amazing it smells and whisk the two together to help cool the butter.

Stir in the brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs and vanilla and mix until smooth. Add the all-purpose flour, oat flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and mix just until combined.

Heat a well-seasoned griddle or cast-iron skillet over low heat for 2 minutes before you increase the heat to medium-low. If your griddle isn’t well seasoned, add enough butter to the skillet to lightly coat.

Working in batches, drop batter onto griddle by heaping ⅓-cupfuls, spacing them 1 inch apart. Use the back of the cup to gently swirl the pancakes so they’re even and a little less than ½ inch thick.

Griddle the pancakes for 3 to 4 minutes on one side, until bubbles start to form on the top and don’t pop, then flip and cook an additional 1 to 2 minutes, until deeply golden. They should puff up to be around ¾ inch thick.

Serve pancakes with maple syrup and more salted butter.

TIP: In the video, she says to use a mini-chopper (like on an immersion blender) to blitz regular oats. That's probably the missing tip.

You can freeze your over ripe bananas for future use when the urge to make this or banana bread strikes you. When you need them, defrost them and cut the tip off one end or the other with a pair of scissors and squeeze the now liquified banana into your mixing bowl. No mashing is necessary.