Four Ingredient Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Okay, I can hear you over there. Four ingredient pancakes? Which four ingredients could they possibly be? Well, let me tell you.

Bananas.

Eggs.

Baking powder.

Chocolate Chips.

That is all. And if you go without the chocolate chips (but really, why would you do that??!), these include only three ingredients. Easy as pie. Or, easy as pancakes. ;)

The recipe is from Recipe Boy, the son of Recipe Girl (who was the inspiration for the pizza pinwheels I posted earlier this week). Neato. I used one and a half times the original ingredients, and this made 8 small-medium sized pancakes for the hubs and me. We both enjoyed them very much! The proportions I used are below.

Ingredients:

-approx. 3/4 cup mashed, ripe bananas

-3 eggs

-scant 1/4 tsp. baking powder

-semi-sweet chocolate chips or chunks

(didn't measure these - just sprinkled them onto the batter)

Instructions:

Mix the bananas, eggs, and baking powder in a medium bowl. Heat a frying or griddle pan, and spray with non-stick spray. Pour about 1/4 cup of batter into the pan in the shape of a circle, as best you can. Cook until the batter is almost done on the bottom side (until it's golden brown), and then sprinkle some chocolate chips on the top side. Flip, and cook another minute or so on the other side or until the other side is also lightly golden brown. Serve warm, possibly with a little real maple syrup, and enjoy!

Now, I've got a few tips for you. The first couple pancakes I made came out on the "ugly" side. I hadn't yet perfected the method or timing of the flip. What ended up working for me was to actually wait a little longer than I expected before flipping. After a couple tries, you'll get the hang of it. When the first side is cooking, it won't be ready to flip until the edges start to harden and lift up slightly from the pan. Also, the longer you wait to flip, the less the batter sticks. Even with a non-stick pan and non-stick spray, these stuck just a little bit for me in the beginning. But the couple batches after the first batch didn't give me any problems at all and were a cinch to flip.

You'll see that these certainly don't look like traditional pancakes; they're a bit more "lumpy" or "bumpy" I guess you could say. And of course, they don't exactly taste like regular pancakes either! But they were actually way lighter and fluffier than I expected them to be. Guess that baking powder really does gift them a lift!

Adding chocolate chips or chunks is a must, in my opinion!

And of course, we topped our four-ingredient pancakes with maple syrup. Obviously.

All in all, I was very pleased with this recipe and would definitely make it again! Overall, I still prefer traditional pancakes, but these are a fabulous alternative that are a bit healthier for you and can be made gluten free-friendly as well by using a gluten free baking powder.

The next time you have some ripe bananas and are trying to figure out what to do with them, give these fun pancakes a try!

Have a great weekend, all!