Everybody loves pancakes and I particularly love the smell of them cooking and wafting through the house. A day started with pancakes is a happy day. When you first make these pancakes there is a point just before you add the egg whites where the batter looks like thick glupe; don’t panic it will work!
Serves: 4
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 25 minutes
Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas Mark 4
Wheat Free, Vegetarian
Ingredients
- 1 large apple
- ½ cinnamon stick
- 1 star anise
- 3 cloves
- pinch freshly grated nutmeg
- 200ml pomegranate juice
- 200ml grape juice
- 20g jumbo porridge oats
- 240ml low fat natural yoghurt
- ½ teaspoon vanilla paste
- 60g jumbo porridge oats
- 40g brown rice flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 100ml apple juice
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 free-range egg whites
- groundnut oil for greasing
- 100g blackberries
- 60g raspberries
- 80g blueberries
- 4 sprigs fresh mint
Preparation
- Core the apple, leaving the skin on and cut into 8 segments. Place the apple in a heavy based saucepan with the cinnamon, star anise, cloves, nutmeg, pomegranate and grape juice. Cook over a medium heat for 3 minutes. Remove the apple segments with a slotted spoon and reserve. Return the pan to the heat and boil the juice and spices for 15 minutes until reduced to a thick syrup. Pass through a fine sieve to remove the spices. Return the syrup to the pan with 4 of the apples segments. Cook over a medium heat for 2 minutes. Using a hand held blender, blitz to a smooth puree. Set aside.
- Meanwhile, sprinkle the oats over a non stick baking sheet and toast in the oven for 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
- In a small bowl mix the yoghurt and vanilla paste together.
- Place the oats, brown rice flour, baking powder, apple juice and cinnamon in the bowl of a food processor and blitz to a smooth paste. Transfer to a mixing bowl.
- In a clean grease-free bowl, whisk the egg whites to form soft peaks. Using a large metal spoon, carefully fold the egg whites into the pancake paste, keeping as much air in the mixture as possible.
- Heat a large non-stick frying over a medium heat. Brush with ground nut oil. Drop a large tablespoonful of the batter per pancake into the pan to make pancakes about 6cm across. Make four pancakes at a time. Cook for about 2 minutes until small bubbles appear on the surface of each pancake, then turn and cook for another 2-3 minutes until golden. Transfer to a warm plate and cover with kitchen paper to keep warm, while you make another batch of four pancakes. You should have eight pancakes in total.
To Serve:
- Arrange two pancakes on each serving plate. Pour over the pomegranate & apple puree/syrup and top with a spoonful of vanilla yoghurt. Spoon over the reserved poached apple segments and sprinkle the blackberries, raspberries and blueberries around the plate. Scatter over the toasted oats and decorate with a sprig of mint
Jennifer’s Tip
- You only need a tiny amount of oil for cooking pancakes, so use a non stick pan and using a pastry brush, brush the base with oil. Alternatively pour a little oil onto absorbent kitchen paper and wipe the paper around the pan. Making four pancakes in the pan at once is much less labour intensive than one at a time, and means only having to cook 2 batches.
This recipe is from Jennifer’s book, The Diet for Food Lovers available on Amazon (The Orion Publishing Group)
Jean Cazals Photography