I actually became a fan of pancakes once I had to go gluten free. They are easy to make, great for breakfast/tea time snack and require only few ingredients. When it comes to cooking there are two things that are important to me one is the ease of sourcing ingredients and the time taken to actually make it. You can call me a practical or lazy cook depending your perspective 😉 and I am okay with either. In one of the reviews of my book ‘A Gluten Free Life – My Celiac Story’ ( HarperCollins India) www.amazon.com/aglutenfreelife the reviewer mentioned my recipes were simple and that is exactly why there were there. When I first had to go gluten free, I saw a lot of recipes online but to my disappointment none of the ingredients were easily available in India and most of the required a lot of time and effort and as a person who was told to go off gluten, it was something which made me very unhappy. Before I digress and go off on another tangent lets talk pancakes. The pancakes were inspired by flavours of the banana bread and spices of Kerala. As Kerala is known for it spices, the malayali genes in me wanted to inculcate it into my cooking. I had got my hands on some organic fresh spices from an aunt’s backyard and I had to use it. I didn’t want to do anything elaborate, just something easy peasy as always 🙂
The Gluten Free Spiced Banana Pancake is just a simple mix of sorghum,rice and some corn starch with a dash of cinnamon and cardamom. I made sure not to over power the flavour of the pancakes by adding too much of spice as too much of ‘c’ spices can make it taste awful. I enjoyed it with some Apple syrup I bought from the Tougas Family Farm, North borough, Massachusetts when I visited the Boston area in October. The syrup is light and not to sweet, just the way I like it. So for me it was a match made in heaven. The beauty of this recipe is that it can be made vegan,sugar free and its nut free naturally.
Recipe
Ingredients
- Rice flour – 1/2 cup
- Sorghum (Jowar) flour – 1/2 cup
- Potato/Corn/tapioca starch – 1/4 cup
- Flax seed powder – 1/2 tsp
- Gluten Free Baking Powder – 4 tsp *
- Cinnamon – half an inch ground
- Cardamom – 1 pod
- Salt – 1/4 tsp
- Sugar – 1 tbsp **
- Milk or an non dairy milk – 1 1/4 cup
- Egg or Vegan egg replacer or 1 flax meal egg – 1 ***
- Banana – 2 small over ripe or 1 big
- Butter or Oil for greasing pan
Method
- Mix dry ingredients in a bowl, to that add wet ingredients and give it a nice whisk or blend with a hand mixie.
- Heat a pan and grease it with oil or butter.
- Pour a ladle full of the batter on the pan and wait till bubbles arise on the pancake, then flip it and take it off once its nice and golden brown.
- Repeat the process and serve with fruit/jam/butter/nut butters/nutella. * Gluten Free Baking Powder – Wheafree or Zero G or any other good brand which is certified gluten free. Organ, Bob Red Mill, Clabber Girl. I also use Rex as it came out gluten free when tested in a lab. ** Omit the sugar if you do not want it and add equivalent of sugar free alternatives *** Use a commercial vegan egg replacer or flax seed egg – 1 tbsp of powdered flax seed in 3 tbsp of warm water
Where to buy gluten free ingredients in India – www.foodbury.com , www.wheafree.com , www.amazon.com . Physical stores – Foodhall India, Godrej’s Natures Basket, Organic Stores in your city/town, there are many stores in Delhi and other places which you can find ingredients, all that is required is a search online.