Buttermilk pancakes with fried bananas and bacon

I’ve not posted a breakfast recipe for AGES! We had this a couple of weekends ago, I’m playing catchup as ever. Fried bananas are gorgeous. They are SO sweet, so much that Adam couldn’t take it, but me and Artie were, like, YAAASSSS!! Bea… notsomuch. But then she doesn’t like much at the moment, such is the right of any almost 4 year old! This makes a nice change from the blueberries and bacon combo with pancakes – and it’s great if yours don’t like normal, raw bananas, like Artie.

I learned recently that bananas are a really, REALLY important food. The reason is potassium, without which we become quite ill. My uncle was in hospital a few years back very poorly, and they tested him for many things. Then they gave him a banana and he was fine. Turns out he was low in potassium. Since then I have made sure I get a few down every week.

Other ways to get banana into kids who aren’t that keen, is mixing them into the pancake batter to make banana pancakes, making banana based smoothies, banana bread or banana muffins, and mashed into banana porridge (which I am doing a lot, then mixing with cocoa or cacao powder). Gosh I seriously didn’t realise how many banana recipes I had on here!!

What ways to you use to get banana into your kids that don’t eat them? I know some people put them in curries, which I have mixed feelings about!

By the way, if you can’t get buttermilk, which can be hard to find, just use natural or Greek yoghurt.

Serves: 4 people
Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: 15 minutes
Total time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
125g plain flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons of baking powder
284ml buttermilk (that’s the amount of the tub I get – anything around that is fine!)
50g butter, melted
3 eggs
More knobs of butter, to fry

To serve: 
Approx 12 rashers of free-range streaky smoked bacon (or pancetta)
Maple syrup
4 bananas – not too ripe, halved

Instructions: 

1. Preheat oven to about 75C – just to keep pancakes warm as they are cooked.
2. Mix the batter ingredients and whisk – don’t worry about a few lumps.
3. Heat butter in a pan and ladle in the batter – I did 4 x big ones and then sliced them into quarters to serve. But little ones are fine too.
4. When they are done, keep warm in oven.
5. When all batter is used, slice bananas lengthways and fry for a couple of minutes in hot butter. Turn gently, but it doesn’t matter if they break.
6. Serve with maple syrup.