Banana Chocolate-Chip Chocolate Protein Pancakes

Firstly, thanks to everyone for all your support about my back.

 

I saw a doctor and a physio about it. Apparently I tore some muscles in the left side of my back. It's nothing too serious, but I have some exercises to do now and I have to take it pretty easy exercise-wise for a little bit. In good news, one of my aims when I started exercising was to improve my flexibility and my physio said I was one of the most flexible people she had seen.

Now, these pancakes are amazing. Looking at these pictures I want to make them all over again. They were deliciously soft, with all that lovely melting chocolate and a hint of banana. The best is, they are about as healthy as pancakes get. With no sugar (except for the honey), wholemeal flour and oats, these pancakes are a trillion times better than the sugary ones from Pancake Manor. And if you ask me, they taste almost as good. 

Level of Difficulty: It’s almost a one-bowl recipe. Nothing too fancy here. 

Average Cost: $

Main Ingredients: Cacao powder, raw honey, banana and peanut butter

Occasion: I swear I will not say anything if you eat them for breakfast. Or for dinner. I did both of them.

Recipe Substitutions/Menu Options: You can omit the chocolate protein powder if you like – you can sub it for any other flavour protein powder or another ¼ of whole wheat flour if you prefer not to use protein powder or 1/4 cup of cocoa powder. Raw honey can be substituted for regular honey, but remember that raw honey is much sweeter and stronger. If you are using regular honey, which is fine, maybe add a little more. I would use my measurements first, and add more honey if it is not sweet enough. For those in Australasia, I used raw Manuka honey – brilliant flavour, very sweet and very strong. You can use any milk you please, I just prefer almond milk.

Makes 8-10 pancakes, based on the size of pancakes. If following my directions, you should make 10 pancakes. Nutritional stats based on 10 pancakes - each pancake is worth 172.

What you need:

-          1/2 cup whole wheat flour

-          1/3 cup oats

-          1 scoop chocolate protein powder

-          1/2 tsp salt

-          2 1/2 tsp baking powder

-          1 tbsp raw honey

-          2 very large, very ripe bananas, mashed

-          1 egg

-          1 1/4 cup almond milk

-          1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

What to do:

Place the dry ingredients (first five ingredients) in a large bowl. Mix together with a whisk – this helps to displace the ingredients evenly.

Add wet ingredients (except for the chocolate chips) and whisk well. If you are using regular honey and find the batter not sweet enough, add more in this step as necessary.

Add the chocolate chips and stir in well, this time with a wooden spoon.

Heat a pan over medium heat. Our frypan was on level 6 of 10. Once the pan is hot, spray with cooking oil.

Using a 1/4 size measuring cup, scoop out the batter and place in the pan. This amount of batter makes one pancake. Make sure choc chips do not go all the way to bottom of batter.

Cook until the batter is bubbling all over the surface of the pancake and then carefully flip the pancake. Once flipped, cooked the pancake for another 2-5 minutes, checking the bottom of the pancake regularly to make sure it is a golden brown and not burnt.

Repeat the previous three step for the remaining pancakes. Before you place each batter scoop down, spray the surface of the frypan. This prevents the pancake from sticking but also ensure the pancake is not fried in oil or butter. A light spray will do.

Serve warm – I drizzled mine with honey, added some fresh berries and some yoghurt.

If you have leftovers, feel free to wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate for later. To reheat, warm in the oven until the right temperature. The microwave will make the pancakes soggy.