Banana + Blackberry Oat Pancakes

Hello people! Long time no blog. My excuse is I've been working tirelessly on new products for Sighh, so have had very little time to wash my hair, let alone plan new posts. But finally, here's something. 

This morning (10am) I was sipping my cuppa tea, mourning over the days where I'd wake up craving breakfast. I seem to have utterly buggered up my morning appetite and it's all too sad. So, I started listing breakfast foods in my head. "Do I want bacon? We do have a lot of bacon. No, nothing that greasy. Muesli? No, I don't feel like excess milk. Porridge? Naa, I'm not feeling that texture right now... but we do have blackberries... and banana" So I decided to fry up some porridge (minus the milk).

Below is a rough breakdown of the ingredients I used, and a couple more that I'd definitely add in the future. This recipe feeds one person, or two not very hungry people, and is gluten free! It's also free of dairy and meat but more and more people seem to be interested in avoiding gluten these days.

• Roughly 1 cup of plain oats (I used the 1/2 cup measurement above, then added more later)
• 1 ripe (mushable) banana, chopped
• 1 egg
• A sprinkle of cinnamon 
• A handful of blackberries
• 1 teaspoon of coconut oil (to fry in) 

Recommended extras/alternatives:

• 1 small apple, grated (can replace the banana, but I do recommend banana)
• Raspberries
• Blueberries
• Raisins 
• Chopped strawberries
• 1 or 2 squares of dark chocolate, broken into small pieces

Now you've chosen your favourite ingredients, here's how to put them together!

In a small bowl, mush up your banana with a fork (or any professional mushing device you may own). Then add the oats, blackberries/any extras and the egg. You could whisk up your egg separately, but that doesn't make for a pretty blog photo.

Once the mixture is all blended (it should look a little less oaty than the above, this was after just a couple of stirs), check that it isn't runny. You want a thick mixture that you can spoon out onto the pan without it loosing its shape. If it's too runny, it will break when you try to flip it.

Heat up your non-stick frying pan then add the teaspoon of coconut oil. Once melted, blob out a rather heaped tablespoonful of mixture and smooth it out gently with a fork. It probably won't be a perfect circle, but this isn't my first time. *Turns away from camera and flicks hair with spatula*

The first side should take 2-4 minutes, but keep nudging the edges to see if the underside is done. If it's golden brown, and more importantly, holds together, you can flip it. The next side shouldn't take more than a minute!

Now sit down and love yourself for making a quick, healthy breakfast that you can definitely Instagram, provided the right lighting. The banana added an amazing caramel taste, and the combination of blackberries and cinnamon gave a hearty, seasonal taste that made me crave Autumn even more. 

Would you make this? Let me know! I was SO impressed with the response to my veggie bake, and eager to make more tasty foods for us all to try. 

Polly xo