When I was in Rockhampton for the Romp In The Park children’s festival for up to 8yo’s, I made green smoothies for children and parents – over 400 in fact. Most of the recipients were children and we spoke about how we use our tongues for tasting, not our eyes. I then asked them to taste a green smoothie. Not surprising (because I have experienced it time and time again), nearly all the children tried it. Many took a sip and didn’t like it. Many. Many. More. took a sip and liked it. They were surprised by how it looked green and icky, but it tasted like banana.
After the festival and running my classes at pre-schools, I had leftover bananas, some strawberries and baby spinach. I was pretty over making green smoothies by this stage, so I decided to turn these ingredients into pancakes. See this picture? These are green smoothie pancakes. They look just as delicious as normal pancakes right? Well they were a resounding hit with the family. Our 4yo said they “rocked the house” and asked me to make them again the next day. I made another batch for our road trip back from Rockhampton to Surfers. Again they rocked the house.
This is a great recipe for getting your children to have greens in their breakfast without even realising it. They are also awesome made into smaller pikelets for the school lunchbox. Enjoy our Green Smoothie Pancakes!
Ingredients
- 2 frozen bananas
- Small handful of strawberries (about 6-8. You can use frozen berries if you prefer)
- 1 large handful of baby spinach
- 1 egg
- 1 cup milk of your choice
- 1 overflowing cup of self raising flour (I used Organ Gluten Free SR Flour)
- 1 tablespoon rice malt syrup
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup of water (depending on how thick you like your pancakes)
(Note, I have made these at home where I tend to mix my own GF flours and I used 1/2 cup LSA, 1/2 cup brown rice, small amount of buckwheat flour and then added 1 tspn of baking powder and 1/2 tspn of bicarb)
Method
- Put it all in a food processor and blend like crazy until smooth and green!
- Heat a pan over high heat, then turn down to medium
- Melt a small amount of coconut oil and roll it around in the pan until it covers the pan
- Use 1/4 cup of batter and put into pan – lift the pan a little to get the batter to spread out into a larger pancake
- If your using normal SR flour, you will see bubbles appear and pop – this is when you turn it over. If using GF flour, most times it won’t bubble but the outside edges will start to lift, turn then
- Flatten down with spatula, cook for about 1 minute and then take out of pan
- Repeat from step 4 (you shouldn’t need to re-oil your pan).
This recipe makes about 8 good sized pancakes. The pic above was a double batch.
Another 2 ways:
- Change the fruit – drop out the berries and add orange or apple (note, banana has a strong taste and it’s good for hiding other flavours)
- Up the protein content by adding LSA or almond meal or for lunchbox safe, add chia seed.
Tips
Awesome served with fresh fruit, peanut butter, yoghurt, nut granola. For mine, I personally add a line of nut granola down the centre, then add 2 tspns of coconut cream and some apple slices. I then roll it up and devour.
You could also make smaller versions – pikelets, to include in the lunchbox.
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