Friday Feast: Banana Pancakes with Home-Made Nut-Ella

My earliest memories are of growing up in Tanzania, East Africa. Barely wearing shoes, spending weekends on the beach, following my mother to the local markets in the pursuit of the freshest, best-quality fruits and vegetables, and haggling with the stallholders to get the best possible price. My mother was sharp and pretty hardcore when it came to negotiating, and everyone at the markets always knew she was coming.

Looking back at it now I can appreciate how lucky I was and what an idyllic childhood I was able to experience. Food was a big part of family life; my parents were good cooks. Growing up in a multi-cultural home – with a Norwegian father and a Danish/Bulgarian mother – I experienced an array of different food traditions. Our trips to see family, and our holidays in general, always revolved around what we ate, which restaurants we visited and what exciting new flavours we experienced. My Norwegian grandmother – who lived in Sweden – would forage and pick what she had available in her garden and knock up home-made jams, cordials and pickles, while my Bulgarian grandmother would cook up a feast for every major national holiday, choosing the freshest produce she could get hold of in the local market.

For me, I think cooking really began when I was six years old and had mastered the art of cooking pancakes, which I would proudly demo at breakfast to all my friends who came over for sleepovers. I was gifted a children’s cookbook and that was it – I was hooked.

Throughout my school years, cooking was the one skill I knew I was good at and could always trust. During my teens, my parents created a competition where each of us had to cook on alternate weekends. We were each given a budget and within it we had to create a three-course dinner in a set amount of time. This was when I really learnt how to follow recipes and my passion for cooking was awakened. Then, later, I cooked at my parents’ dinner parties, in the communal kitchens at university, and I catered for my friends’ birthday celebrations.

During my last year at university in Spain, I met my husband. I decided to stay on after I finished my studies. I started my first little business, called Pockets, delivering home-made sandwiches and salads.

At 26, I suffered a string of health issues. A visit to a gynaecologist confirmed that I suffered from polycystic ovary syndrome and endometriosis. I was told that the likelihood of me ever getting pregnant would be next to none and that this was a fate I should prepare myself for. I am not into labels and would not call myself a vegan, but most of what I eat on a daily basis consists of plant-based foods, and while I don’t want to make any claims that these foods helped me to get pregnant, what I can say for sure is that since adding more fruits, vegetables and general plant-based foods into my diet, I feel heaps better.

I also cut out gluten around this time, after learning that I had probably been intolerant to it for a very long time, and this was what had been causing the stomach problems I had suffered from for as long as I can remember.

My passion and expertise lies in how to use everyday ingredients and make them tasty in the simplest possible way. I love finding solutions and ways of cooking ingredients that I would normally never think of, as well as sourcing and finding seasonal fruits and vegetables and creating something yummy!

Makes 6 small pancakes, serves 2

• 140g gluten-free flour
  
• 250ml almond milk or any plant milk
  
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
  
• pinch of salt
  
• 1/2 grated apple
  
• 1/2 vanilla pod, scraped
  
• 1 tbsp coconut oil, for frying
  
• 1–2 ripe bananas, sliced into rounds
  

For the nut-ella (makes a 700g jar)

• 300g hazelnuts
  
• 250ml coconut oil
  
• 3–4 tbsps maple syrup
  
• 3 tbsp cacao powder
  
• 1/2 vanilla pod, scraped
  

To serve

• fresh fruit and berries
  
• coconut yoghurt
  
• drizzle of maple syrup
  
• nuts and seeds
  
• fresh mint leaves
  

One of my all-time favourite breakfasts. The grated apple adds sweetness to the batter and the caramelised bananas make these pancakes irresistible. Perfect for a lazy weekend morning, or you can batch-cook them and keep them, covered, in the fridge so you have breakfasts sorted for a few days.

NUT-ELLA

1. Place the hazelnuts in a blender and blitz until fine. Then add the rest of the ingredients and blend to a smooth chocolate paste.
   
2. Spoon into a clean glass jar or container and set aside.
   

BANANA PANCAKES

1. Add all the pancake ingredients, except the coconut oil and bananas, to a bowl and mix until you get a lovely thick pancake batter.
   
2. Using a pastry brush or kitchen paper, rub a non-stick frying pan with an even layer of coconut oil and pop on medium heat. Ladle in enough batter to make three small pancakes, arrange some banana slices on top and gently push them into the batter.
   
3. Cook the pancakes for 4–5 minutes until the batter sets, then gently flip the pancakes and cook for another 4–5 minutes until the bananas have caramelised and the pancakes are cooked through. Remove and keep warm. Repeat with the remaining batter and bananas until both are used up.
   
4. Serve the pancakes warm with a dollop of home-made nut-ella, fresh fruits and mint leaves.
   
5. I also love adding a dollop of coconut yoghurt, a cheeky drizzle of maple syrup and some nuts or seeds.
   

• Batch Cookable

• Freezable

• Lasts for +3 days in the fridge

• Pancakes can be nut-free if you use coconut milk instead of almond in the batter

READ Happy Vegan Food by Bettina Campolucci Bordi (£15, Hardie Grant) Photography Nassia Rothacker

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