Coconut Protein Pancakes with Raw Banana-Cacao Granola and Nutella-Berry Sauce

I love creating different flavoured pancakes in Sundays, it is my lazy morning weekly treat! ... well one of them ;) this Sunday I was home in Bunbury and my sister and I were planning on heading to a local café for a healthy breakfast, but I couldn't resist the temptation to raid mum and Sarah's own healthy 'essentials' on the cupboard to create more tasty and healthy pancakes... and they didn't have any issues with my creations! With no real idea what I was doing except the goal of healthy, tasty, colourful and flavoursome pancakes (seems like a challenge itself!) I got creating...

Coconut Protein Pancakes with Banana-Cacao Granola and Nutella-Berry Sauce ...bit a melt in the mouth itself :P

There is three steps to this recipe, and they surprisingly didn't take too much time! The first thing I did was soak my Chia seeds, then as I prepared the rest of the recipe, putting everything into the food processor for the nutella-berry sauce was the last thing to do and the Chia seeds were in their lovely gel consistency :) So I would recommend 1. Soaking the Chia, 2. making the granola (it is easy!) then make the actual pancakes and while the second batch is cooking whizz up the rest of the Nutella-berry sauce.

Most ingredients such as the coconut cream and almond meal come from the macro organics range in Woolworths while coconut sugar, coconut flour, cacao and maca powder come from health food shops.

Banana-Cacao granola

1 ripe banana
1 small handful of shredded coconut
1 small handful of pepitas
1 tablespoon LSA
1 teaspoon maca powder (optional - could use mesquite powder or cacao powder!)
1 tablespoon cacao nibs

In a small bowl mix shredded coconut, pepitas, maca powder, cacao nibs and LSA until combined. This is open to variation and you could put in some chopped almonds or walnuts and any seeds you fancy!

Slice half a banana and cut the slices roughly into small pieces. Add to the dry mixture and mix together with a knife to coat the banana and prevent it from clumping together. Put the other half of banana to one side.

Coconut protein pancake

2 eggs
1 tablespoon coconut sugar (alternative - honey)
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1/4 cup coconut cream (macro organics)

1/2 cup coconut flour
1/2 cup almond meal
1 scoop natural or vanilla protein powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
2/3 cup nut milk (can use rice or dairy milk if you prefer)

Whisk the eggs, vanilla, coconut cream and sugar together.

Add the coconut flour, almond meal, protein powder, baking powder and nut milk and mix until smooth. You can add a little more milk if the mixture is too thick.

Heat a fry pan with a little Light Olive Oil on medium heat and add 1-2 scoops of pancake mixture per pancake depending on how big you want to make them. Two smaller pancakes were great for decorating on a plate but one large one each works too :)

Cook for 2-4 minutes until little bubbles form through the pancake. These are quite delicate and soft with the almond meal and coconut flour so carefully separate the edges with a spatula before you flip (the smaller the easier to flip!). Flip pancakes and cook for another 2-3 minutes until browned, transfer to a plate to decorate! And put another batch of pancakes into the pan.

Chia Nutella-Berry Sauce

1 tablespoon Chia seeds
1/3 cup water
1 tablespoon coconut cream
1/3 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
1 tablespoon home made nutella ... seriously if you can, make this!! it is delicious :D

Sarah's Home made Nutella :)

Soak the chia seeds in the water in a small bowl for 10-15 minutes.

Transfer to a food processor and add 1 tablespoon of home made nutella (you can use peanut butter or else 1-2 teaspoons of cacao powder for that hint of chocolate taste).

Add the coconut cream, nutella and 1/3 cup of fresh or frozen raspberries and process for around 30 seconds until smooth.

Excuse the old food processor ;)

And now you are ready to decorate!

With left over coconut cream drizzle this as the undercoat onto the pancakes, next add some Berry-Nutella sauce and a few slices of the left over banana.

Next top with the Banana-Cacao granola, some extra raspberries and sprinkle with coconut sugar... I absolutely love the different colours on these pancakes! It reminds me of Christmas with the red raspberries, green pepitas, white coconut cream and yellow banana.

I can't wait to try more colourful flavours with Cacao flavoured pancakes with blueberries or Apple and cinnamon... the possibilities are endless!! Needless to say my future health café will be sure to have a range of colourful pancakes on the menu :D