With Shrove Tuesday looming, I’ve been experimenting with some dairy-free pancake recipes, (since Veganuary I haven’t particularly fancied the milk, egg and butter-laden traditional version). These were definitely the best of the bunch – they are sweet from the bananas, with a lovely crunch of toasted pecans, and dotted with chewy sultanas…. no weird health-food-shop ingredients in sight! The batter is so light and airy that they taste like the very best American-style buttermilk pancakes. I should have done a blind taste test on friends and family, as I’m positive no one would guess these are actually vegan.

One of the most important ingredients in successful pancakes is a good frying pan. I’ve tried many different ones over the years, and have had the most success ever with the recent acquisition of a ceramic-coated pan. I hadn’t really seen these before, but there are lot on the market now, and now prefer mine to any teflon-coated one.

This is also a brilliant way to use up over-ripe bananas!

Print Pecan & Maple Banana Pancakes (vegan) Prep Time 5 mins Cook Time 10 mins Total Time 15 mins Course: Desserts Servings : 12 pancakes Author : Kate Ford | The Veg Space Ingredients 70 g pecan nuts

2 bananas

300 ml nut or soya milk (I used almond)

2 tbsp maple syrup

Pinch salt

200 g self raising flour

50 g sultanas

Oil for frying (I used coconut) Instructions Heat the frying pan you will use for your pancakes, and tip in the pecan nuts. Toast them gently until they are just starting to change colour, (watch carefully, they burn in the blink of an eye!), then tip onto a chopping board and chop roughly. In a blender or food processor, blitz the bananas, milk, maple syrup and salt together. Weigh the flour and tip into a jug. Add the blender ingredients to the flour, whisking until no lumps remain. Add the sultanas and pecans. Heat a teaspoon of oil in a frying pan. Add two tablespoons of batter to the pan, fry gently for a minute or two until golden brown on the bottom, then flip over and cook for a further minute or two. Eat immediately, drizzled generously with maple syrup.

For more variations, you could try leaving out the pecans and sultanas, and adding:

lemon zest and blueberries

hazelnuts

orange zest and dark chocolate chips

peanut butter and raspberries

What’s your favourite pancake topping?