Crisp and fluffy pancakes filled with thinly sliced banana spiced with rum, cinnamon, nutmeg, malt powder and vanilla. Topped with whipped butter, sliced bananas and a drizzle of fresh maple syrup.

What’s going on here

Flour

Flour is the overall base of the pancakes. All purpose flour makes a neutral base for a variety of flavors. The flour gets toasted in the butter and oil giving the pancakes it’s signature golden brown crust.

Bananas

Creamy bananas add sweetness to the pancake batter. For this recipe use ripe, but not too soft of bananas. Mashed bananas can make for a dense or underdone pancake. Thinly slicing bananas give the batter something to wrap around leaving you with crisp and fluffy pancakes.

Malt powder

Malt powder adds a toasty caramel flavor that gives the bananas a brûlée taste to them. The malt powder boosts the flavor of the vanilla extract and rum. Malt powdered is really fine, for  a little extra malt flavor lightly sprinkle the powder like cinnamon over the freshly sliced bananas.

Cinnamon & Nutmeg

Cinnamon and nutmeg are both warm spices that compliment the bananas but plays off of every other part of the dish. Once the cinnamon and nutmeg are warmed in the butter of the hot pan it starts to melt  with the toasted flour, sweet brown sugar and vanilla. Add as much cinnamon as you like. Use the nutmeg sparingly according the recipe.

Salt & Brown sugar

Salt helps boost the flavors of everything going on here. Using only a pinch is all you need to get the benefits without a pronounce salty flavor.

Brown sugar helps caramelize the outside of the pancakes and makes the pancake extra special. Do not go too heavy on the sugar in the pancakes since the bananas are naturally sweet. The pancakes can also be finished off with maple syrup, honey or powdered sugar for a extra hit of sugar.

Baking Powder

Baking powder helps the pancakes rise. A nice scoop is all you need. 

Butter & Oil

Butter and oil used together is important to making crisp and buttery pancakes. Butter helps add flavor once’s it starts to cook the butter flavor deepens and starts to become nutty in flavor. Oil makes the pancakes batter more fluid similar to using oil in brownie batter. Fluid pancake batter will make better formed pancakes with the addition of bananas.

Egg

Eggs add height and bind the pancake batter together. The eggs are whisked in with the wet ingredients to ensure they are thoroughly combined. The rich yolk also contributes to the golden hue in the pancakes.

Rum & Vanilla

A little splash of dark alcohol really enhanced all the spices and bananas. The vanilla works similarly but with a more pronounced vanilla flavor. Limit the alcohol to a splash, too much alcohol can make the pancakes taste boozy. 

Tips & tricks for the best Malted banana pancakes

Making the batter

Making the batter is easy all you need to do is separate the wet from the dry ingredients. Separating wet from the dry ensures that all ingredients are measured and accounted for and also keeps you from adding in moisture too soon. Once moisture is introduced to dry ingredients they immediately start to react. Adding all the ingredients together all at once keeps your pancakes light, fluffy and airy.

Slicing the bananas

Keeping the bananas sliced thin is important to the overall cook of the pancake. Thin bananas are going to cook in less time than thick ones. Thick ones can cause the pancakes to cook unevenly due to the size of the slicing. Mashed bananas can throw off the final texture and can result in over worked and underdone tough pancakes. Thinly sliced or cubed chunks work best for this dish.

Spicing the batter

Spice the batter with any warm spices you have on hand. Cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla are great spices that compliments both pancake and fruit. Try it out with as much or as little as you’d like.

Cooking the pancakes

Toss the bananas in the dry batter to lightly coat the bananas to keep them suspended in the pancakes. When stirring the batter don’t worry about breaking up the bananas too much. Cook the pancakes in a combination of oil and butter to get a nice fried crust on the pancakes. When flipping the pancakes the pancakes are done when they do a final rise around the flipped chunk of banana and the batter is leveled with the banana and not sunken.

Similar ingredients to

VANILLA BOURBON PANCAKES + WHIPPED CAPPUCCINO BUTTER

BROWNIE BATTER PANCAKES

STUFFED BANANA PANCAKES

Enjoy this recipe with

BLUEBERRY LOVERS WAFFLES

ORANGE & CRANBERRY JAM MUFFINS

SAVORY SPINACH EGG WHITE CUPS

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