Rye Pancakes with Caramelised Bananas and Maple Syrup

Have you heard of Kim Boyce, and her book Good to the Grain?

The basic principle is that she takes all sorts of recipes that would almost always be baked with ordinary wheat flour (all purpose flour), and replaces the wheat with other types of flours. I'm not just taking about a little bit of spelt here or there, but amaranth, buckwheat, kamut, oats, teff and barley.

And - of course - that old favourite of the cold climate/poor soil crowd - rye.

The book is amazing, and if you are anything like me, just flicking through the pages will fill your head with possibilities and ideas beyond the scope of the book itself.

And now I must confess - this recipe doesn't come from the book at all - but it wouldn't have come about had it not been for Kim's encouraging voice in my head. You see she has changed the way I think about baking. Instead of following a recipe and tweaking the amount or type of nuts, fruits or spices, I now consider changing the fundamental building blocks of the recipe - the flour. It's new territory for me.

So here we are.  A pancake mixture baked from this old book, recipes from which have been part of my life since before I can remember.

The tweak was modest, and, admittedly, rye isn't the most exotic of switches, but substituting half of the wheat flour for rye gave such a good result that next time I will be going the whole way.

Rye Pancakes with Caramelised Bananas and Maple Syrup

Makes around 12 small pancakes, or 6 larger ones

50 g plain flour / all purpose flour
50 g rye flour (I used whole grain rye)
A pinch of salt
1 large egg
300 ml milk
A small amount of butter or oil for frying

To serve:
2 bananas
A handful of pecan nuts
Maple syrup

Place the flours and salt in a medium bowl and whisk thoroughly to mix and knock any 'clumps' out.

Add the egg and mix with a fork.

Gradually add the milk, stirring until smooth between additions, and continuing until all the milk is used. Beat well.

Heat a small amount of butter or oil in a frying pan. I used a small pan in this case. When the oil is hot, pour about 1/4 cup of batter into the pan (1/3 cup if using a bigger pan). I used a small measuring cup for this to keep the quantities even.

While pouring the batter swirl it around to fill the base of the pan.

Wait until the pancake is golden brown underneath (use a knife to have a look underneath one edge if you are unsure), and then flip it over to brown the other side.

Tip the pancake out onto a warmed plate, and repeat the process until all the batter is used up. Keep the pancakes warm.

Now for the pecans and bananas. Toast the pecans in the same pan you used for the pancakes. Set them aside.

Slice the bananas and place them in the same pan with a bit more butter if required. Fry them on a high heat until they start to soften and caramelise. When they are as browned as you want them, add some maple syrup and add the pecans back to the pan and continue to heat until everything is warmed through.

Pour the syrup and bananas over the warm pancakes and then feed them to people. They will love you for it!

 

This post is linked up here!