About a month ago, I went down to L.A. with a couple of friends for my birthday. We did a little sightseeing, a little shopping, a little hiking and a lot of eating.
One of the awesomely delicious places at which we dined was The Griddle Cafe. Ever heard of it? I hadn’t either, but I found it on Yelp and decided that a place with more than 1,300 reviews and an average 4-star rating could not be a bad choice for breakfast.
The menu includes all sorts of over-the-top treats, like Oreo-stuffed pancakes and Nutella-filled French toast. I ordered The Golden Ticket, which is pancakes with brown-sugar-baked bananas, walnuts, streusel, caramel and whipped cream.
It was the most delicious breakfast I’ve ever had!
Of course, I’m speaking as someone who just cannot get enough sugar. My friends are more the savory breakfast type, but even they had to admit their sugar-coated French toast was super good.
So, you can see where the inspiration for this blog post came from.
My sister, after hearing me go on and on about how great these pancakes were, decided we should try to make them for breakfast on Christmas morning. We both have had trouble in the past with banana pancake recipes that didn’t turn out very good, so I was a little worried that’d happen again.
But the recipe she found for banana pancakes on Oprah.com turned out really tasty! (The fact that we smothered the pancakes with sweet toppings probably helped, too.)
The recipe includes caramelized banana slices, but you can add pretty much whatever other toppings you want on these pancakes. On Christmas morning we did without the caramelized banana topping, instead smothering the pancakes with homemade caramel, streusel, whipped cream and cinnamon sugar. My brother-in-law even added a hefty dollop of Nutella to his pancakes. And if you like nuts, toasted walnuts would taste great on these pancakes.
If you’re going the homemade route with the toppings, I recommend making the caramel and streusel toppings the night before, and the whipped cream in the morning. For the streusel, the recipe I linked to makes waaaay more than you need (because it’s meant for a cake topping). I cut the recipe in half, and still had plenty of streusel left over. I baked the streusel on a baking sheet at 350˚F for about 5 minutes (until I could tell the butter had melted and the streusel had browned a little) to add a little crunch to the pancakes.
Recipe: Caramelized banana pancakes
Adapted from a recipe by Delilah Winder, via Oprah.com | Makes 8 pancakes
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1 tablespoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ⅛ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
- 2 large eggs
- 1¼ cups milk, at room temperature
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 3 to 4 medium bananas, peeled and cut into about 1/4-inch-thick slices (about 2 cups)
- 3 tablespoons firmly packed light brown sugar
- extra butter, for cooking
Extra toppings (optional)
- Caramel sauce
- Streusel
- Whipped cream
- Cinnamon sugar
- Toasted walnuts
- Nutella
- Whisk together the dry ingredients — flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and nutmeg — in a large bowl.
- Melt the butter in a microwave-safe bowl or in a small saucepan over medium heat and set aside.
- Whisk the eggs lightly in a medium bowl, and then pour in the milk, vanilla and 3 tablespoons of the melted butter, whisking until well-combined. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture, stirring until the batter is smooth and thick.
- Mash up half of the banana slices in a medium bowl and stir into the batter.
- Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter in a frying pan over medium heat. With a silicone spatula, stir in the brown sugar. Add the rest of the banana slices and cook on both sides until caramelized and golden brown, about 3 to 4 minutes per side. Remove from heat, spoon into a bowl and set aside for topping the pancakes.
- Heat 1 tablespoon butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Pour about a ½ cup batter onto the pan for each pancake and cook until bubbles appear around the edges. Flip the pancake over and cook until brown on the other side. Remove from the pan and set on a plate in a warm oven. Carefully wipe out the pan and add more butter if necessary. Repeat until you’ve used up all the batter.
- Serve pancakes with the caramelized banana slices, caramel sauce and whatever other toppings you like.
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1 comment
April Thompson
March 31, 2012 at 6:37 pm (UTC -7) Link to this comment
That looks absolutely delicious!! I’m going to have to try that sometime, I love pancakes and I love bananas!!