Cassava Pancakes with Banana
Yesterday was Saturday aka pancake day.
Sunday is soccer day. Saturday is pancake day if the main cook (me) has the energy to whip up a batch.
But recently, I’ve been getting annoyed with internet recipe sites. So many adverts! So slow! It takes so long to find the actual goddamn recipe.
So I decided to crack open ChatGPT (a “natural language processing tool driven by artificial intelligence”) and see if my new AI buddy could come up with a good pancake recipe with the exact specifications I had in mind.
Here’s what I asked it to do:
I asked it to provide me with a recipe for cassava and almond flour pancakes, which it did. But then I remembered I wanted to have BANANA pancaked, duh. So much better.
Life/Breakfast Rule: ALWAYS make it a banana pancake!
Real question: should pancakes even be allowed to exist without banana?
Below is the recipe I got from ChatGPT with just a handful of my own modifications that make these pancakes EVEN MORE delicious.
But let me just say something before you start whipping up pancakes:
These pancakes ARE SO GOOD.
The ratios are great. They puffed up beautifully and didn’t remain gooey and gross in the middle as pancakes sometimes do.
I’m a convert.
This will be the first of MANY recipes that I get from ChatGPT. Whereas normally it would take me 20 minutes to find the right recipe and then straggle through the horrible user interface of most recipe websites, this took me three minutes tops.
And the recipe was exactly what I wanted.
A customized recipe made before my very eyes!
If you’re intrigued, create your own ChatGPT account and see what kind of recipes it’ll make for your myriad of dietary preferences: https://chat.openai.com/
Now, go ahead and make these damn good paleo pancakes. Then make them slightly less paleo by dripping maple syrup all over them and adding a dash of peanut butter or almond butter for extra fatty goodness.
Cassava Flour and Banana Pancakes i.e. Paleo Goodness that You Can Modify to Suit Pretty Much Any Dietary Constraint on Planet Earth
Required Ingredients:
1 cup cassava flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 ripe banana, mashed
2 large eggs
1/2 cup milk of your choice (dairy milk, almond milk, etc.)
2 tablespoons melted butter or coconut oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Optional Ingredients:
1/2 cup blueberries - frozen or fresh
a couple handfuls of chocolate chips
Instructions:
>> It does take about 10-15 minutes to cook all the pancakes so turn on the oven to 175 or so and keep your pancakes warming in the oven as you make them. Unless you like to just deliver your pancakes to hungry mouths and eat your own pancakes afterwards.
In a large mixing bowl, combine the cassava flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix them together to ensure they are well mixed.
In a separate bowl, mash the ripe banana until smooth. Add the eggs, milk, melted butter or coconut oil, and vanilla extract. Whisk until well combined.
Human note: You can also just dump the wet ingredients into a tiny food processor and let it do all the work for you. Much more fun. (This 3.5 cup Kitchenaid is ridiculously fun to use, small, and easy to clean - so it’s good for all of us with stupid-tiny apartments.)
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until you have a somewhat smooth batter. If the batter seems too thick, you can add a little more milk to thin it out.
Human note: The batter will probably seem too thick so you will almost definitely need to add more milk.
Optional Special Ingredients: Once you’re done mixing the main ingredients, you can add the blueberries and chocolate chips and mix them in. Don’t think it’s appropriate to have fruit AND chocolate in your pancakes? Well, you’re wrong.
Heat a non-stick skillet or griddle over medium-low heat. You can lightly grease the surface with butter or coconut oil if needed.
Human note: You can totally use your cast iron skillet or any frying pan that you happen to own. Non-stick pans are basically the devil because they are known to contain toxic materials, so you should probs get rid of that right away. ALSO, you will definitely need to drop a 1/2 tablespoon of coconut oil into your skillet and let it melt before you start cooking your pancakes on it.
Once the skillet is hot, pour about 1/4 cup of the batter onto the skillet for each pancake. Use the back of a spoon or a spatula to spread the batter into a round shape.
Cook the pancakes for 2-3 minutes, or until the edges start to look set and bubbles form on the surface.
Carefully flip the pancakes using a spatula and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes on the other side, until they are golden brown and cooked through.
Remove the cooked pancakes from the skillet and keep them warm. You can place them on a plate in a warm oven while you cook the remaining pancakes.
Repeat the process with the remaining batter until all the pancakes are cooked.
Serve the cassava flour and banana pancakes warm with your favorite toppings such as sliced bananas, berries, maple syrup, honey, or nut butter.
These pancakes are extremely delicious when doused liberally with peanut butter and maple syrup!
This is not a food blog. So don’t expect fancy pictures of the food. Behold, cassava and banana pancakes about 2 seconds before they got covered in peanut butter and maple syrup and stuffed into my mouth.
How bout a bird’s eye view shot of the ole pancakes???
Version 1 of the pancakes ChatGPT recommended.
Now since we’re learning things, how about we learn the benefits of using bananas in our pancakes…
Benefits of Eating Bananas:
According to ChatGPT and the internet:
Vitamins and Minerals: Bananas are a good source of essential vitamins and minerals, including vitamin C, vitamin B6, potassium, magnesium, and dietary fiber. BUT, eat too many of them and they will make you constipated or the opposite.
Potassium: Bananas are well-known for their potassium content. Potassium helps regulate blood pressure, maintain proper heart function, support muscle contractions, and promote healthy kidney function.
Dietary Fiber: Bananas contain dietary fiber, including both soluble and insoluble fiber. Fiber aids digestion, promotes satiety, and helps regulate blood sugar levels. But again, too much banana can either stuff you up or make you runny. Just sayin’.
Natural Energy: Bananas are a great source of natural energy due to their carbohydrate content, particularly in the form of easily digestible sugars like glucose, fructose, and sucrose. They can provide a quick energy boost but don’t seem to give you the big afternoon crash that eating pure sugar does.
Mood and Brain Health: Bananas contain tryptophan, an amino acid that the body converts into serotonin, often referred to as the "happy hormone." Serotonin plays a role in mood regulation and can contribute to overall well-being
Post By Colette Nichol, writer, eater, and filmmaker
