Banana Oat Bran Pancakes

I spent my Saturday morning and afternoon cleaning out my kitchen cupboards, which meant throwing out expired goods and taking stock of my ingredients. I found I had an inordinate amount of almond extract along with more oat bran than I know what to do with. (I can’t imagine why I ever would have bought this much oat bran?) To use the bananas I bought last week but never ate (along with the overabundance of almond extract and oat bran), I created this recipe:

ingredients.

¾ to 1 c. flour
1 c. oat bran
1 ½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. of salt
½ tsp. cinnamon
1 T. sugar
½ c. milk
4 T. butter, melted
½ tsp. almond extract
2 large ripe bananas, mashed
2 large egg
1 c. sour cream or yogurt

directions.

Preheat oven to 200ºF. In a large bowl, stir together the flour, oat bran, baking soda, salt, sugar and cinnamon. In a small bowl, mix together the milk, almond extract, banana, egg, butter and sour cream/yogurt. Add the banana mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.
Preheat a skillet or griddle to medium and mist with cooking spray. Drop the batter by 1/4-cupfuls onto the griddle and cook until bubbles form and edges turn golden, about 3 minutes. Flip pancakes and cook until golden on the other side, about 1 to 2 minutes longer. Keep pancakes warm in the oven while you cook the remaining pancakes.
Serve with butter and your favorite flavor syrup. Top with toasted slivered almonds and more sliced bananas, if you like.

This pancake tastes exactly like what it is: a healthy oat bran pancake. Even with dressing it up amongst mashed bananas and almond extract, the healthiness remains. That being said, if you like healthy-tasting pancakes you’ll probably like this recipe. A lot more than I did anyway.

I somehow managed to forget to add the baking soda to the recipe, which I don’t think had much of an effect (if any at all). The batter was thick; and, therefore, the pancakes took longer than normal to cook. I was able to make one thinner pancake by rotating the pan a bit after I dropped the batter down. If you like thinner pancakes, you can use that technique (or thin out the batter by adding more milk).

Makes about 15 3-inch pancakes.

Recipe rating: 