I’ve been saving jam for a special occasion.

I skipped Shrove Tuesday and haven’t been eating toast, so the special occasion jam sitting in my fridge has been waiting and waiting for me to decide it’s time to indulge a little. All that sugar really is an indulgence to me and requires the perfect warm, chewy complementary food.

That meant that finally I made pancakes. I have a new Thai cookbook. Normally that’s not where you’d think to go to find a pancake recipe, at least not a breakfast, sweet pancake recipe, but that’s where I went. “The Elements of Life” by Su-Mei Yu is about figuring out your home element (water, earth, wind, or fire, depending on your birth day, year, continent, and whether you were born on time, early, or late). Then based on your element you learn how your body needs to be fed, at what ours, with which kinds of spices, herbs, meats, and vegetables according to the climate you live in, the season, and the time of day. Needless to say, it’s a little complicated, but the concepts are based on Thai cultural traditions, so it makes a little sense. When typhoon season comes (or rainy Springs or Falls in humid places such as Newfoundland) you need to eat (generally) more astringent, warm, drying foods (turmeric, stir-fried okra), and in hot, humid summers (Montreal) you need leafy greens to cool yourself and dry out.

<iframe title=”YouTube video player” width=”480″ height=”390″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/hWKni_HQDnM” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>Of course, since it is a Thai cookbook the types of recipes have an Asian flavour, with lots of lemongrass, coconuts, mangoes, papayas and foods not native to Montreal or North America, so it’s a little tricky to justify that this is a “natural” way to eat here. It maybe makes sense in Thailand where these fruits are available more often, but once you get past the locavore skepticism the recipes are beautiful. Simple, but beautiful.

This is not the perfect Thai cookbook. Yes, there are traditional Thai techniques and ingredients, and yes, you’ll find noodle dishes resembling Pad Thai, but it’s not about cooking up the most amazing bowl of the stuff you’ve ever eaten. It’s really about health, and the simple seasonings of Thai fish sauce, soy, tamarind, and fermented bean pastes may leave you desiring a little more bite in a recipe.

Besides, the first chapter is of foods for all elements and includes about three recipes for pancakes – ones with apple sauce, banana, with orange juice, with rice flour, with cornmeal, with coconut milk, buttermilk (how much buttermilk is in Thailand? I’m not criticizing. I’m just curious, I swear!) and a proper blend of fresh berries according to your individual element. So some foods are good for everyone. Again, it’s an individual thing. Just because someone was born the same day and year as you does not make you the same person, and doesn’t mean your body will like the exact same foods. Apparently everyone should like coconut, but trust me, for a long, long time my body did NOT like coconut milk. We still fight about it from time to time. The conversation goes like this:

Me: “Have some coconut milk. It’s so good for you!”

Body: “No.”

Me: “It’s creamy and delicious!”

Body: “No.”

Me: “You won’t have to reduce store-bought almond milk for half an hour to add to a coconut-vanilla chicken dish and still be disappointed with the flavour!”

Body: “No skin off my back.”

Me: “You’re hilarious. I know…”

Still, the book is gorgeous, the recipes are healthy (nutritious and very much palatable when made correctly), and after tweaking all the pancakes in the book to create the ultimate pancake recipe I finally got break out the homemade rhubarb jam that a wonderful friend gave me. With another jar I bought at a small bake sale and craft fair and some maple syrup, I had a mild coma-inducing sugar rush (and crash) and a long afternoon on the couch to enjoy the memory of the savoury-sweetness.

Banana-Apple Gluten-Free Pancakes with Corn and Rice Flour

1 cup frozen corn kernels

1/2 cup fine cornmeal

3/4 cup rice flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tbsp sugar

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 large egg, separated

1 tbsp butter, melted

1/2 cup puréed apple, or applesauce

1 small banana (1/2 – 3/4 of a large one)

1 cup almond milk, or until desired thickness

I really did bastardize the recipe. The original called for buttermilk and I didn’t want to use that. I didn’t originally want to open a container of almond milk because you need to use it within a week and I currently have no other plans for it. So I used banana as a moisturizer and buttermilk replacer, but then I figured I had some frozen apple purée in my freezer that I should use up as it was taking up much needed spanikopita space. Then the flours…well, mostly I figured an all-rice flour pancake would be pretty crumbly and corn is sweeter so I wouldn’t need to add much sugar or crave too much maple syrup (an over-indulgence that makes me much more miserable while I lie on the couch after ingesting). I also had a little fine cornmeal leftover from who knows what that I was probably never going to otherwise use. You can substitute more rice flour, all purpose flour, or more corn kernels. So that lead me to this:

Combine the flours, salt, sugar, cinnamon, and baking powder in a large bowl. In a small bowl beat the egg white until frothy. Set aside.

In a medium bowl whisk the egg yolk, then add almost all the melted butter, reserving just a little to grease the griddle. Whisk until lighter in colour. Set aside.

In the blender combine the apple purée, banana (in chunks), almond milk and corn kernels. You can also leave some corn kernals un-blended if you like texture and mini-corn explosions in your cakes. Kind of like adding blueberries or chocolate chips in a standard recipe, and just as sweet. Very un-traditional, but also very delicious.

Blend until smooth, then add to the bowl with the egg yolk and butter and whisk to combine. Add the combined flours and stir (don’t over-mix). then fold in the frothy egg white until you can’t see any white in the batter. Again, don’t overmix or your cakes will go from fluffy to dense – not a desirable characteristic of a pancake or a person. Though I suppose a fluffy person would be a strange thing to behold.

This is where you add the un-blended corn kernals if desired (or blueberries or chocolate chips)

Let the batter sit for 10 minutes before heating a griddle or frying pan over high heat. The book originally says heat for 5 minutes on high with nothing in the pan (no butter) but that causes my pans to smoke, so I heated until just before smoke started rising and then added the leftover little bit of melted butter. You can spread it around with a pastry brush if you like. You can also just use more. That’s fine too, but I used a vegan butter that tastes like absolutely nothing, so I’m essentially just adding fat and not flavour, which is basically my nightmare. Butter is delicious. Becel vegan is junk and it’s worth skimping on it for the sake of your waistline since you’re not getting anything out of it taste-wise.

Ladle small scoops of batter onto the pan as per regular pancakes. These are, in fact, pretty regular pancakes despite the fruit and flour substitutions. If your batter is too thick dilute it with more almond milk so that your ladles of batter don’t look like space creatures with weird spikes and twisted edges. Don’t overmix the batter, though. Be gentle.

Reduce the heat a little immediately (to medium or medium-high, depending on your griddle) so the pan doesn’t smoke. Wait about 3 minutes, or until bubbles appear on top of the pancakes (mine were too thick and I didn’t get any bubbles) and then flip them over. Then you’re supposed to cook until they feel springy, but I say cook them until they’re golden on both sides. If they’re the right thickness they should be cooked all the way through. If not, on the next batch you’ll need to lower the griddle heat so they have time to cook through before charring on the outside.

The first batch is always the worst. Some people re-butter between batches but it depends on your griddle. You may not need to as long as the pancakes don’t stick.

Finally! Jam! Yes! Thanks SO much to my jam-giver for this delicious bottle of rhubarb tartness. As a “water” element I’m supposed to have slightly sour fruit with my breakfast, so orange or rhubarb, to balance the sweetness of the pancakes. I bet you had no idea you were so intuitively Thai.