Banana-Cardamom Pancakes and First Food Challenge
Posted: March 17, 2013 Filed under: Allergy tests, Breakfast, Recipes 6 Comments »We’ve been living in Switzerland now for nearly 8 months. I was looking back at some earlier blog posts when I made banana pancakes without a recipe at our temporary apartment. So much in our lives has changed since then (except my French is still very limited!).
In particular, we know a lot more about our son’s allergies, and next month he’ll have his first “food challenge” at a nearby hospital—which I never thought we’d be doing this soon.
Alps view across the lake, never looks the same twice – August 2012
First Food Challenge
Our son’s first food challenge with baked egg will be held in Vevey. At 21 months, he’s never had eggs before—we’ve avoided all egg product or products that may contain traces of eggs.
While we’re still learning what this could mean for him, we were told if he “passes” the test, he could start eating pasta and baked goods made with eggs—as long as they were cooked for at least 30 minutes at 400°F/200°C. Raw or undercooked eggs, such as scrambled eggs or pancakes with eggs, would still be off limits. So, I’ll still need to make my banana pancakes with flax meal. During this last week I worked to perfect my recipe, which appears below.
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Banana-Cardamom Pancakes
1 tablespoon flax meal
3 tablespoons water
1 ripe, mashed banana
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ teaspoon cardamom
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
1 ½ cups flour
1 ½ cups soy or rice milk
Mix the flax meal with water and let sit and thicken for a few minutes while you mash the banana.
Mashing the banana while the flax meal and water sets
Add the banana to the flax meal mixture and add the next four ingredients: olive oil, cardamom, salt and sugar. Whisk together.
Then, whisk in the flour and soy or rice milk until blended, but do not overbeat. Batter will be lumpy.
Using a measuring cup, pour pancake batter on a medium-high heated skillet. Flip the pancake once the air bubbles throughout the pancake begin to burst. Cook about 1-3 minutes on each side, until light golden brown, and serve warm.
Banana-Cardamom Pancakes with a little whole wheat flour
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I’ll let you know how the food challenge goes next month. If you have any advice or experiences to share, please leave a comment below. Thanks!
[...] 17, 2013 – UPDATE: After lots of experimenting, I came up with a recipe for Banana-Cardamom Pancakes. Please let me know what you think, if you try it out. [...]
I hope the food challenge is a success! That is very encouraging. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to do that with my boy..
About the skillet… Cast iron is non stick, which is one major selling point. But you have to season your pan every so often (apply with a brush or paper towel about a tablespoon of vegetable oil and keep the pan on low for a few minutes). If properly seasoned, you won’t have any problems with sticking, but a truly non stick surface develops over time, and with regular seasoning. I use my skillet every day and I never have to wash it with anything other than a water rinse. I season it about once a week, which means that I never have to use anything on the pan for pancakes, thus making the skillet as low fat as you need it to be!
Thanks, Marla! As for the cast iron, my husband was just saying the same thing… Our pan obviously needs to be seasoned more often!
I’ll make an adjustment to my description above. Hope all is well! And, yes I hope you have a food challenge on the horizon too!!
Where\with whom are you doing the food challenge?
Hi Nicole! I’ll send you an email with the details. I know you’ve been through these before, so it’s maybe at the same place?
[...] I tracked down a recipe for Zopfhasen online, which I’ve been adapting all week. As with my banana pancake experiments last week, my family is sick of eating bunny rolls. Yesterday, I finally got the recipe [...]