Recipe: Nutritiously Natasha’s Everything Free Cacao Nib & Blueberry Banana Bread Pancakes

If the name of this divine recipe isn’t enough of a mouthful, wait until you get some of the real thing! Just in time for the weekend.

We are delighted to bring you our first wellness-inspired guest recipe from a very special welltodo Londoner. Natasha Lipman, or @NutritiouslyNatasha as she is known and loved on Instagram, shares her recipe for ‘Everything Free Cacao Nib & Blueberry Banana Bread Pancakes’. Yes, believe it or not, these pancakes are gluten-free, sugar-free and completely vegan!

CACAO NIB AND BLUEBERRY BANANA BREAD PANCAKES

Serves 2
Total Time: 20 min

Ingredients:1 large ripe banana
1 cup homemade medjool date-sweetened almond milk
1 cup gluten-free oats
1/3 cup mix buckwheat flour
1 heaping tbsp homemade almond butter
2 tsp Organic Burst maca
1/3 cup blueberries
1/4 cup cacao nibs
1 tbsp flax seeds
1 tbsp hemp seeds
1/2 tsp cinnamon (or to taste)
Pinch pink Himalayan salt
Coconut oil

Instructions:

If you don’t have homemade sweetened almond milk (not the shop kind!), take one medjool date and blend it with the almond milk until all the date pieces are broken down.
Mash 2/3 of the banana and keep the rest to one side. Then add the mashed banana, oats, flour, almond butter, maca, cinnamon, hemp seeds, flax seeds, and salt to the sweet mylk mix. Blend until a smooth pancake batter is formed. There’s quite a lot in there, so I generally give the nutribullet jug a couple of shakes during the blending process to make sure everything gets broken down.
Stir the blueberries and cacao nibs into the mixture.
Melt some coconut oil in a frying pan and then add two heaped dessert spoons of the mixture. You can use the side of the spoon to move the mixture around and create a nice round pancake shape. The mix will be quite ‘gloopy’, but that’s ok! Cook until the sides start to brown a little and then flip over and cook the other side. I generally just keep an eye on them and flip them when they look ready
Repeat until you’ve got a towering plate of pancakes. If you need to add more coconut oil throughout, just add a little teaspoon to the pan as you go along.
Take the remaining third of your banana and cut it in half lengthwise. Then pop the pieces in some of the coconut oil that’s left in the pan for about 10-15 seconds on each side, and you have the world’s healthiest caramelised banana.
Add your favourite toppings and enjoy a giant steaming stack of super healthy pancakes!

Notes: Gluten-free, sugar-gree, vegan.

Natasha is a food blogger, writer, and recovering international relations addict. She adopted a plant-based diet out of desperation to help her heal from three chronic illnesses, and has since become a passionate advocate for using food as medicine.