Power Cacao Pancakes

Although these ended up being VERY tasty, they didn’t look as delicious as the picture on the recipe!
I found this recipe from Bianca Zapatka- they looked irresistible. Sadly, mine didn’t look as good as hers, but I guess that is to be expected for a first try right?

The recipe was for Vegan Power Cacao Pancakes, and as I am not a vegan, I used butter to fry mine in, and added golden caster sugar instead the coconut blossom sugar- which oddly enough I didn’t have in my cupboards. Maybe this sugar substitution was my pancakes’ downfall?!

The ingredients were:
– Flour (90 grams)
– Cacao Powder (2 tbsp)
– 1 Mashed Banana
– Unsweetened Almond Milk (120ml)
– Sparkling Water (50ml)
– Golden Caster Sugar (2 tbsp)
– Baking Powder (1 tsp)
– Butter for frying

I combined the mashed banana, sparkling water, milk and sugar, giving it a quick whisk with a fork. At this point, I found it quite lumpy because of the banana, but this added to the final result as there were chunks of warm banana- if you like banana of course!

In a separate bowl I mixed the flower, cacao powder and baking powder. I think when I next follow this recipe, I will sieve the cacao, just to ensure there are no clumps left.

I then combined the two mixtures, and mixed until it had thickened up, kind of like a brownie batter. The recipe does state, if you like thinner pancakes, you can add more milk at this point.

After chilling the mixture in the fridge for around 5-10 mins as suggested, I heated a chunk of butter in a pan, and began cooking my mixture. Spooning a few spoons into the pan, I let the batter bubble a bit before flipping.

This is where it went slightly wrong…

I am not sure if it was my pan, or the butter, or the tweaks to the recipe, but I found the mixture got stuck to the pan easily, and it went a lot darker that the pancakes in picture that I was trying so desperately to replicate! After battling with the batter, and repeating this procedure a few times, my pancakes were plated. Looking slightly deflated, charred and out of shape, I did my best to perk them up with some toppings.

I sliced half an avocado, sprinkled some blueberries and pomegranate seeds, and drizzled the stack with some maple syrup.

As I said, they tasted great (apart from the burnt bottom one), and the toppings really helped to lift the texture. If anything, they were a bit stodgy, and there was no way I could finish the whole stack. I added a spoon of creme freche too which added a nice light creamy flavour.

Overall, not completely successful, but I will definitely be trying them again! Maybe all I needed was that coconut blossom sugar?!