Strawberry Jam Pancakes

This is probably my proudest creation so far. I made pancakes for me and my boyfriend one lazy morning, and I had some spare strawberries that needed consuming. So I thought I would attempt to make a strawberry sauce for my pancake tower. First off I cooked up some chocolate pancakes using my usual recipe and adding cocoa powder. I then stacked them up layering peanut butter in between. For the sauce I simply microwaved 3 large strawberries in a Tupperware container for about 30 seconds. This will turn the strawberries gooey but you will need to mash them up a bit more with a fork. I then stirred in a tablespoon of Greek yoghurt and a teaspoon of Stevia for sweetness. Et voilà!  Pour over the top of your pancakes letting the sauce combine with the melted peanut butter, and there you have it; heaven on a plate!

Pink Pancakes

 Last week I had a bit of a pancake obsession and one morning I wanted to try something a little different. How cool do these pancakes look?! And no food colouring was used at all. The secret pink ingredient is a little weird... beetroot! Not enough to affect the flavour, but just enough to give the pancakes an amazing pink colour. And as they were pink, I thought what better than to make them strawberry flavoured? To get the strawberry taste I added some of the protein powder I use: USN Pure Protein. I also tried out a new yummy filling. Peanut butter is a must with pancakes, but I wanted more of a sauce for my little sandwich. So to do this I mixed PB with banana and cocoa powder, it was marvellous!

Ingredients

Pancakes

40g oat flour (blend oats in a blender)

1 whole egg  &1 egg white

3 tbsp liquid (I used unsweetened almond milk)

1 tbsp low fat cottage cheese

2 tsp stevia

2 large slices of beetroot from a jar (patted dry with kitchen roll)

1 scoop of Strawberry USN Pure Protein

1/2 tsp baking powder

Sauce

1 tbsp organic no added sugar peanut butter

1/2 mashed banana

1 tsp cocoa powder

Instructions

Pancakes

1. Put the oat flour, liquid and beetroot slices into a blender and blend until smooth. It should be nice and pink, if not then add a little more beetroot until you reach the desired colour. 

2. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add the eggs, cottage cheese, stevia, baking powder, protein powder and mix until you reach a batter consistency.

3. Heat a small amount of butter in a frying pan on a low heat.

4. When the pan is nice and hot, pour the mixture into small circles in the frying pan, leaving plenty of space between each one. I usually fit about 3 pancakes in the pan at one time. 

5. Cook for about 3 minutes or until you can easily get a spatula underneath to flip them over. 

6. Flip them over and cook the second side only for around 1 minute.

7. Stack them up on a plate adding the sauce in between each layer.

8. I then topped mine with honey!

Sauce

1. Mix together the peanut butter, mashed banana and cocoa powder.

2. Microwave for about 1 minute, until nice and runny.

Be brave & add the beetroot!

Lucy x

Healthy Pancakes

Pancakes topped with peanut butter, banana and blueberries on the side

Pancakes are one of the best clean eating healthy treats in existence. They make an amazing breakfast, and can be made using basically the same ingredients you would use to make a bowl of porridge, so therefore you need not worry about the calorie content! You can whip them up in around 10 minutes, and you can go wild with toppings or extra ingredients. I have seen hundreds of different recipes and ways of making the pancakes, but I will share with you the most basic recipe I have used which works well.

Ingredients

To make 1 serving (roughly makes 6 small round pancakes)

40g oat flour (blend oats in a blender)

1 whole egg & 1 egg white, whisked

3 tbsp of liquid of your choice (almond milk, soya milk, milk, water)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

3 tsp stevia

Instructions

1. Mix together the oat flour, whisked egg and liquid until smooth. The mixture needs to be thick but runny, judge this yourself and just add more liquid if it is too thick.

2. Stir in the baking powder, cinnamon and stevia.

3. Heat a small amount of butter/oil/cooking spray in a frying pan on a low temperature.

4. Spoon in the mixture into circles on the frying pan, to whatever size you want your pancakes to be. Remember that they will rise.

5. Leave to cook for about 3/4 minutes until they are nicely browned, then flip.

6. The second side will only need about 1 minute of cooking.

7. Serve, and top with peanut butter and chopped banana, or whatever you fancy!

Done!

I initially struggled when cooking the pancakes, as the mixture always seemed to burn and stick to my frying pan, almost ruining my pan every time I tried to cook them! So I have found that cooking them on quite a low heat solves this issue, I need to learn to be a bit more patient when cooking... 

Variation: 

Chocolate pancakes topped with banana, peanut butter & honey. For chocolate pancakes, just add  1 tsp of unsweetened cocoa powder to the pancake mixture

Keep an eye out, as I am going to try some new ingredients & recipe ideas I have soon, there are so many to try. I think it is going to be pancakes for breakfast everyday for me for the foreseeable future. Nom nom nom!

Lucy x