Almond Milk Pancakes

Ahh, Friday morning pancakes.  During the school year, i would never have time to indulge in pancakes from scratch on a weekday, but i'm enjoying my family's full size kitchen and well-stocked pantry when i'm at home:)

For a while now, I've been meaning to come up with a healthier pancake recipe. This one is not as close to healthy as I would like, but it's getting there, since I decided to swap out buttermilk for almond milk. 

As the summer comes to an end, I'm trying to come up with practical, healthy, simple recipes that I can use during the year.  I don't usually drink a lot of regular milk during the school year, and I prefer almond milk for my morning cereal or as just a drink.

to make this recipe slightly healthier, i also threw in a banana. for funsies. and also, as i've mentioned before, i always over-estimate the number of bananas i'm going to eat, so by the end of the week i'm left with brown bananas and itching to make banana bread or muffins or what have you.

there are really only two things i care about when it comes to pancakes: 1.) the flavor 2.) the consistency of the batter.

 in this case, i opted for a sweeter, banana-y flavor rather than a more tart, buttermilk flavor this time. and it sort of worked, although next time i would like to sneak some peanut butter in there and see what happens. however, i was pretty happy with the consistency of these.  the batter was pleasantly lumpy and thick enough to produce the small, fat pancakes that i like.

as for ways to make this healthier? next time i'm going to try adding in some whole wheat flour and maybe some oatmeal:)  oh how i love pancakes!

also, i think i'm a four-year-old at heart.

this pancake was supposed to be heart-shaped, but it ended up looking more like mickey mouse:)

Almond Milk Pancakes (makes 6-8 pancakes) 

1 cup flour
1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 banana, mashed thoroughly
1 to 2 tablespoons butter, melted
1 cup almond milk (original flavor)
1 egg, lightly beaten

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl.  In a separate bowl, mix together the almond milk, egg, butter, and mashed banana. Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined, making sure that the batter is still lumpy.  Cook the individual pancakes over low-medium heat, and serve with maple or agave syrup.