Please pardon me that I didn't... but at least I know now.
I'm a strong believer of omega-3 fatty acid and we have been eating salmon fish at least once a week for our good health. Now I know that 20% chai seeds are actually made of omega-3 fats, I love to incorporate this plant-based omega 3 enriched ingredients more often into our daily food.
Besides eating chai seeds in my overnight oats breakkie, I like to use it as an ingredient for my cooking and baking... While do so, I have discovered this unbelievably good vegan pancake recipe!
Unbelievably good? Please believe me that I'm not being drama using such bombastic words describe these pancakes. Although these pancakes might look ordinary to you, there are many things in these pancakes that really impressed me!
Fluffy banana chia vegan pancakes
This amazing recipe is from the book, Superbooks 24/7 by Jessie Nadel.
Please allow me to show you how I cooked these pancakes first. Then you will see how these innocent-looking pancakes really impress me...
To make 10 little pancakes to feed 2-3 person:
Start by combining 125g plain wholemeal flour with 2 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp baking soda* and a pinch of salt.
*I was worried that this amount of baking soda is too much and reduced it to 3/4 tsp which works well for me.
Amazing Fact One:2 teaspoons of baking powder and 1 teaspoons of baking soda to make 10 small pancakes!!! Are you sure? That's a lot of baking powder and soda!!! If you have this feeling when you first see this amount of baking powder and soda added, you are not alone because I thought the same too. I worried that the pancakes will have bitter aftertaste... Honestly, I can't really taste any bitterness in these pancakes at all.
In another bowl, mash one medium banana until smooth (according to the book) or roughly (if you like small banana chunks).
Add 1 tbsp chia seeds and 250ml (1 cup) almond milk (or dairy milk if you are not a vegan)
Add wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until the batter is smooth.
No worries about over-mixing as there is no egg in this batter.
Amazing Fact Two:Notice something? There is NO sugar or any other sweeteners and NO butter, oil or any fat added into this batter!!! I went through the recipe at least 3 times to check if I have missed out any fat or sugar... Yup. NONE!!! Triple confirmed!!!
Amazing Fact Three:OMG! Before cooking the pancakes, I realised that I don't need any oil to cook these pancakes too! ... but what if the pancakes stick to the frying pan??? I felt super insecure with this idea and so I smeared my frying pan extremely lightly with a paper towel soaked with a small dab of Alfa One rice bran oil (about 1/2 tsp) and it works out well. Maybe the book is right that I don't need any oil to cook these pancakes but nothing is mentioned that I need to use a non-stick frying pan or not.
Before preheating my frying pan, I smeared it with a dab of Alfa One rice bran oil.
Cooking the pancake with medium heat.
Amazing Fact Four:Although the pancake batter is not thick and contain NO EGG, it's amazing how the banana and chai seeds can gel up the ingredients together to form such these beautiful pancakes!
Amazing Fact Five:This is the most amazing of all!!! See how fluffy these pancakes...
These pancakes are structurally stable!!!
And we can eat them either warm or cooled to room temperature.
Amazing Fact Six:
These superfood enriched pancakes are so yummy! They are so good on their own that you don't need to add maple syrup or any syrup or even a small dust of icing sugar.
Amazing Fact Seven:
It is vegan... animal friendly!!! And it makes me feel good that I'm environmentally responsible enjoying these :)
Amazing Fact Eight:
This recipe is so versatile that you can use it to cook so many different types of pancakes:
1. Add 1 tbsp cacao nibs or chocolate chips to make chocolate pancakes
2. Add about 40-45g pineapple chunks (1 1/2 oz) for extra Tropicana flavour
3. Add 1/2 tsp cinnamon to make cinnamon pancakes
4. Add 15g (1/2 oz) desiccated coconut to make coconut pancakes
5. Add 30-40g (about 1 1/4 oz) fresh blueberries to make blueberry pancakes
6. Use equal amount of oat and gluten free blend flours to gluten free pancakes
To me, this list of variations seem endless...
I hope that you will like these Super fluffy banana chia pancakes as much as we do.
Want more superfood?
Besides these breakfast banana chia pancakes and blueberry chai overnight oats that I have made for myself and my family, there are many vegan recipes that I like to explore in this book...
This "Kick-Start" quinoa salad looks really quick to make and healthy to eat.
Healthy because quinoa contains 50% protein than wheat :)
Udon soup with broccoli, kale and sweet potato
This is my kind of comfort food for rainy days.
I can see that this lemon chia "poppyseed-looking" loaf contains moderate amount of fats and sugar in it.
Look really wholesome to bake these for little kids :)
I remember this!!! I have baked adzuki bean brownies before at here but this is the eggless vegan version.
Interesting!
Wish that I can show you more superfood recipes... If you like this book as much as I do, you may wish to know this book is available now in most retail or online book shops at the retail price of AUD$29.99.
As this post is specially written to review this book, I'm sorry that I have agreed to the publisher that I can't publish the recipes in this book in this post. However, if you really wish to make these SUPER AMAZING pancakes, please read my post in details, you will see that you can actually do it without a written recipe as I have fully illustrated the process very thoroughly to you. *Hint*
Before ending this post, I like to thank Murdoch Books for giving me this opportunity to do this review. I like to make a disclaimer here that I'm not paid to do this and like to share my most honest opinions with everyone who read this review.
Eat well and Happy Cooking.Please support me and like me at Facebook...
