American-style banana pancakes

American-style banana pancakes for Shrove Tuesday - otherwise known as pancake day.

My latest cookery book find is a brilliant little paperback book, that doesn't have a single photograph, called America's Most Wanted Recipes. It aims to recreate dishes from the USA's most popular restaurant chains so you can make them at home.

I like pancakes, but the ones I normally make - from flour, egg and milk, and serve with lemon and sugar - weren't a patch on the ones I had on holiday in America in September. We were staying at a b&b in Jackson Hole in Wyoming, and were served banana pancakes for breakfast. I really don't like banana, but I thought I would try them anyway to be polite, and I was blown away. The key thing was that there weren't big pieces of banana either in or on top of the pancakes, but the flavour permeated throughout (and covering them in maple syrup didn't hurt).

When I saw my new American cookery book had several pancake recipes, and that they were far more elaborate than the simple ones I normally make, I knew I wanted to try to recreate the breakfast we had in Jackson Hole. The recipe I used was intended to recreate the banana-nut pancakes served at the International House of Pancakes (IHOP) - somewhere that my travels in America sadly didn't take me. Maybe next time!

I adapted the recipe quite a lot, as I didn't want to bother with the nuts, and I couldn't get hold of banana extract. I also decided not to make the banana syrup that is served over the pancakes, and instead concentrate on putting the banana in the pancakes (and then use standard syrup or honey on the top).

For the pancake batter you need:
Makes 6 pancakes

1/4 cup sunflower or vegetable oil
1 1/4 cups plain flour
1 1/2 cups buttermilk (I used milk with a dash of lemon juice as I couldn't get hold of buttermilk)
1 egg
2 tbsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 banana

Mix all the ingredients together apart from the banana - it's easiest to use an electric mixer though I didn't so I had to beat the mixture hard to make sure there were no lumps.

Mash a ripe banana with the back of a fork, then mix into the pancake batter

Heat some Fry-Light in a small frying pan and pour in enough of the pancake batter to cover the pan (or use a ladle). Cook on both sides.

I then decided to chop some pear to make mine even more fruity

You can keep the pancakes warm in the oven while you make each one. They look great if you serve them in a stack - I piled four on top of each other then cut through the whole stack in half so we had four pancake halves each.

I added the pear and a spoonful of fat-free Greek yogurt on top, and drizzled over honey.

These pancakes were thicker than the UK style ones I normally make, and the addition of sugar to the batter made them much sweeter. They were also amazingly light and fluffy, and had a nice but not overpowering banana flavour. My boyfriend doesn't like bananas either, but we both really enjoyed these pancakes.

By a happy accident the ingredient for this month's One Ingredient Challenge, hosted by Franglais Kitchen, is banana, so I am adding this recipe to the linkup. The challenge is also hosted in alternate months by Laura at How To Cook Good Food.

I am updating this to send to Cooking Around the World, as this month's theme (for which they accept old posts) is American food.