banana pancakes

Have you ever stumbled across a recipe that sounds like it's too good to be real? Truly, I think a passionate chef can take even the humblest ingredients and create something extraordinary. But how simple is too simple?

I was over on Youtube the other day paying my dear friend No-Egg Craig a visit when I saw that he had recently uploaded a video where he made three-ingredient pancakes using only food from the dollar store. I was baffled by his ingenuity, yet doubtful. Perfect pancakes using only three ingredients? There had to be a catch, some smoke and mirrors obscuring the truth. I decided to put it to the test. This is a play on his original recipe, with a few slight modifications on my part.

To make these pancakes, you'll need:

half a banana

a quarter cup of rice flour

a quarter cup of soymilk

half a teaspoon of cinnamon

a pinch of salt (just a little pinch)

half a teaspoon of vegetable shortening

As you can see, I've sifted the dry ingredients together like so. With so few components going into the mix, there's probably no real practical reason for this. I just like the way cinnamon looks when it's mixed into flour.

Dump that into the blender-cup and then toss in your banana stumps. Allow them to rest and get acquainted with one another.

In goes the soymilk, and again, any type of non-dairy milk will do here, sweetened or otherwise. Blend everything together and get your pan heating up over a medium flame.

Burn, baby, burn.

I know that vegetable shortening probably isn't the healthiest or most obvious option, but it was either this or olive oil. Nobody wants to eat a pancake saturated with olive oil. Take it from somebody who has the empirical evidence to prove it. Toss that lump in.

The number seven. Could it be a sign? No time to think about that right now. Pour in enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan.

Yow-za. This stuff starts dancing as soon as it hits the teflon. Don't try doing this one shirtless. I never claimed to be Martha Stewart. I'm just another vegan walking that lonesome vegan valley. When the edges are golden brown, you're ready to to flip it.

Yeesh. That's a little rough. My intention with this recipe was to make enough batter to cook exactly one single pancake, but it turned out so thin and watery that I ended up getting three out of the mix. We're gonna try to do another one.

The shortening wasn't spitting at me out of the pan this time. Let's take a look at the other side.

Okay, that looks a bit less like shit. We're gonna use this one for the money shot.

Fuck yeah, dude. The texture of these are quite different than Craig's; he really nailed that crispy, cakey, flapjack type of texture, whereas mine turned out a bit more like rubbery crepes. But I can't complain.

Just looking at these things makes me feel like a fat piece of shit. This is why I don't keep maple syrup in the house. The temptation is just too much.

Overall? I was pretty satisfied with this recipe. They didn't turn out as sweet as I was expecting, but you could probably fix that by using a riper banana. There are a lot of things you can do with these floppy little fuckers. I'm probably gonna end up making banana hotdogs with them to snack on.

Thanks, Craig. Looking forward to seeing more stuff like this from you in the future. Keep on keepin' on, and, as always, god bless. Have a great weekend, everybody.