I like nothing better than to bastardise recipes that uses ‘traditional’ ingredients. Sugar? Raw honey or maple syrup will often do. White flour? Buckwheat, einkorn (not strictly gluten-free but tends to be more tolerable than regular white wheat flour) or almond flour will often do the trick. Cow’s milk? Almond, coconut or soy milk can be great alternatives. If using cow’s milk I’d go for full fat, organic and ideally non-homogenised. The less tampering the better.

So the other morning I decided to experiment with fresh ideas for puddings (that’s dessert for you non-UK readers) that ticked all the boxes yet tasted sweet. Lovely assignment and the fun bit of writing a food blog –  you get to try, taste and eat a lot of different things. Which is great as I love food! Pancakes are a big hit in my family and always have been. Which is both good and bad. Good, because I know my children love the prospect of eating pancakes. Bad, when it tastes in any way different from the ‘normal’ ones.

The key to making tasty pancakes, I think, is to cook them with butter. I’ve tried coconut oil but it simply doesn’t taste right. So I use organic butter and a lot of it. As a filling, I mashed a banana and grated one of the gazillion apples I got in my weekly Abel&Cole juice box. I don’t quite know what to do with them all so this was an excellent way of diminishing my supplies. I topped it off with a sprinkle of cinnamon and a drizzle of honey. Although not the best looking things (big, fat sausages springs to mind)  they tasted delicious and the children really liked them. I didn’t mention the bit about gluten-free to them either 🙂 Here is what went into them:

Gluten Free Buckwheat Pancakes 

Pancakes:

3 tbsp almond flour (ground almonds)

3 tbsp buckwheat flour

4 eggs

1/2 cup coconut cream

Butter for cooking

Filling:

1 apple, grated

1 banana, mashed

sprinkle of cinnamon

honey to drizzle

lime

Mix ingredients for pancakes together until you have a smooth batter. You may have to add a bit of flour or cream depending on consistency. Make pancakes in a pan, cooked in butter, as per normal until you have a few stacked up.  Mash up the fruit, add cinnamon and honey and fill each pancake with the mixture and roll up. Drizzle with lime and serve. If you have soft fruit you can substitute the apple for strawberries/raspberries or blueberries mixed with banana.