Pancakes with banana, blueberries, cider reduction, and cinnamon roasted macadamias

Pancakes with banana, blueberries, cider reduction, and cinnamon roasted macadamias

There have been some lovely organic blueberries at the farmers market the past few weeks. I finally bought a punnet from one of my favourite storeholders at the Captial Region Farmers Market, Windellama Organics. I was thinking about doing something with them and a banana I had in the fruit bowl. But I had some chopped macadamia’s (leftover from Australian crusted chicken I’d made for a family picnic – a story for another day) and I’d left a couple of centimetres of lovely cider in the bottom of a stubby the night prior. I didn’t want to use any cream or icecream in my dish. So the idea began to form in mind.

Serves 2

1/3	cup	original alcoholic cider
1/4	cup	chopped macadamia nuts
1	teaspoon	ground cinnamon
1	teaspoon	brown sugar
1/2		banana, sliced
1/2	cup	blueberries
1	cup	self raising flour
1		egg, beaten
1	cup	milk
1	tablespoon	butter, melted and cooled
1	tablespoon	caster sugar
1/4	teaspoon	vanilla extract

 To prepare pancake batter: Place flour and sugar in mixing bowl. Make a well in the centre of the ingredients. Add ½ cup of milk, the egg, vanilla and melted butter to the well. Use a balloon whisk to combine the wet ingredients in the well and gradually draw-in the dry ingredients. This technique reduces the likelihood of getting lumps in the batter. When all ingredients are combined, the batter should be the consistency of thick cream. Add enough of the remaining milk to make it so. If you have time, leave the batter to rest to allow any lumps to dissolve.

To make syrup: Reduce alcoholic cider till reduced to the consistency of syrup.

To make macadamias: Combine chopped macadamias, cinnamon and brown sugar in a non stick pan over medium heat. Toast nuts, tossing the ingredients regularly until fragrant and golden.

To cook pancakes: Bring a  large fry pan to a medium heat. Melt a small nob of butter in the pan and spread to coat. Pour enough batter into the pan to make a 10cm wide pancake. You should be able to cook three or four pancakes in the pan at a time. Pancakes will be ready to flip when bubbles push all teh way through to the top. They sould be golden. Flip all pancakes and continue cooking till golden on both sides.

To assemble: Stack three or four pancakes on a plate, slice banana on top, scatter over blueberries, macadamias and pour over syrup.