Banana Bread Pancakes

One of my favorite things about Saturdays is that my husband wakes up early with our son while I get to sleep in. I say every week that it's going to be a "long" sleep in but my husband knows my weaknesses. Which at breakfast time, it's pancakes. So on Saturday during my sleep in I awakened to the smell of banana bread. I thought to myself, "holy smokes, Andrew has really gone out of his way this morning!" So I hopped out of bed and ran downstairs expecting a thick piece of piping hot banana bread with a smathering of rich butter atop it. But all I saw were pancakes (which normally I'm elated but let's face it pancakes and banana bread are in totally different ball parks). So my husband coaxed me into sitting down to this mound of pancakes with bananas and walnuts on top. And though my mouth expected reguarly yummy fluffy pancakes, what my mouth found was the taste of banana bread. Yep, my husband is a genius. You don't have to wake up extra early to have fresh banana bread for breakfast, you just need to add mashed bananas and chopped walnuts to your homemade pancake recipe and voila you have a treat for breakfast, or lunch, or dinner, or everything in between because I won't lie, all day long I'd nuke a little cake for 15 seconds and put some butter on top and I had warmed up banana bread.

Yes, my husband is a genius!

Banana Bread Pancakes

The bones of this recipe are taken from The America's Test Kitchen

2 cups A.P. Flour

2 tablespoons Sugar

2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon Salt

2 cups Buttermilk

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 large egg

3 ripe bananas, mashed

1/2 cup Walnuts, chopped

Sliced bananas and whole walnuts for garnishing.

1. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

2. In a separate bowl, combine the milk, butter, and egg. Add to the dry ingredients.

3. Add the mashed banana and walnuts.

4. Heat up a large griddle or skillet on medium heat.

5. Spray with some vegetable oil spray and pour 1/3 cup of batter for each pancake. (Also a large icecream scooper works great!)

6. When the top side of the pancake is all bubbly, flip. After about a minute take off heat and pour more pancakes.

7. Heap two or three, or five pancakes and top with banana slices, walnuts and some maple syrup. Heck, add icecream if you really want to a treat!!