It’s December already, and if you’re anything like me, that means you’re wearing multiple fluffy socks and ditched your shower playlist for Mariah Carey’s Christmas album.
Let’s face it: we were in the Christmas spirit the moment Thanksgiving was over. (Maybe even before!) And with 2020 almost wrapping up (but not quite!), it’s probably been the most challenging year of our lives, surviving a global pandemic. We all need to celebrate this holiday season.
If you live away from family: you might be reconciling that you won’t be going home for Christmas this year. Traveling across states (or countries!) can be unsafe, and we don’t want to irresponsibly put our elderly parents in danger. Getting the whole family together may only happen over video calls this year.
And without family, I know that if I start making chocolate chip cookies, I will be the only one to binge eat them at 3am. Last year my favorite joke was, “What did I get for Christmas? I got fat.”
This year, I don’t plan to ruin all the progress I’ve made following Chloe Ting’s workouts on Youtube, but I still want to feel as much in the holiday spirit as I possibly can.
That’s why eating healthy versions of your favorite Christmas foods can lift your mood and not the number on the scale.
And pancakes are no exception.
A trip to IHOP could have been the perfect Christmas morning when we were kids, but we’re well into the territory of watching what we put into our bodies.
Christmas morning brunch menu ideas
Pancakes aren’t particularly festive on their own; they’re usually a childhood Sunday breakfast favorite. I absolutely adore pancakes but hate how they make me feel.
A breakfast of stuffing your face with fluffy pancake slathered with butter and drowned in maple syrup? Delicious, but gives you a sugar high that crashes pretty quickly. You’re left with a mild headache as you squint at your laptop screen, trying to get some work done.
Not the best way to start the day.
I began searching for a way to enjoy pancakes for breakfast without feeling like crap in an hour. I also wanted to incorporate some complex carbs into my diet. With a gluten-intolerant roommate, I turned to GF rolled oats for a solution.
This recipe is incredible because it requires no added sugar, and it can all be made in a blender!
Plus, it uses up those overripe bananas lying on your kitchen counter.
They’re healthy because they have more than 10g of protein per serving and tons of fiber. This recipe serves one person with a huge appetite, but feel free to double it up! You could even quadruple it to feed the family something nourishing and decadent on Christmas morning.
Keep reading till the end for my healthy home-made ‘Nutella’ recipe! The perfect topping to make pancakes Christmas morning worthy.
Here’s how to make it
The Ingredients you’ll need
- ¾ cup of gluten-free rolled oats/instant oats
- 1 overripe banana (it should be very ripe and mushy, with the black spots on the peel. However, if it’s releasing fluid and has fruit flies on it and smells fermented, it’s way too overripe. Don’t use it!)
- 1 egg (I add it for the protein, but I’ve replaced this with a flax egg, and it worked wonders. You can do this if you want a vegan alternative.)
- ¼ cup of milk or plant milk
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract (you could use a vanilla bean for some extra fanciness!)
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon flax meal
- A pinch of Kosher salt
- Butter for greasing your griddle/pan. You can use oil instead of a vegan alternative.
Method
- First, add the dry ingredients to your blender. That’s the oats, the baking powder, the cinnamon, the flax meal, and salt. Grind it for a few pulses until it’s a coarse powder. It doesn’t need to be too fine.
- Add all the wet ingredients. The egg/flax egg, the banana broken into chunks, the milk and vanilla extract. Pulse a few times until everything is relatively smooth and looks like pancake batter.
- Heat your non-stick flat pan or griddle with a little bit of butter/oil and pour! I love making smaller pancakes so that I can stack them. Cook until you see the pancakes rise a little bit. When you see bubbles, it’s time to flip. They should be dark golden brown.
You can really dress up these pancakes to get into the holiday mood. I stay away from the maple syrup because they’re honestly sweet enough already. The overripe banana makes the pancakes super soft.
You could cover it in strawberries and (more) bananas and organic peanut butter. I like putting some homemade ‘Nutella’ because it’s still in the healthy territory when you make it yourself.
Homemade Nutella
- 400g 2 1/2 cups of hazelnuts
- ⅓ cup oil (coconut/olive oil or even hazelnut oil)
- ⅓ cup sweetener (this can be maple syrup, brown sugar, or even regular white sugar)
- 3 tablespoons dutch process cocoa powder
- 2 tablespoons milk powder (optional)
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
You can also add some melted milk chocolate to make it tastier but I want to keep it healthy so I generally don’t.
- Roast the hazelnuts in an oven. Then take off their skins by rubbing them in a kitchen towel.
- Grind them in a food processor. First they’ll turn into hazelnut meal which is a coarse powder. Keep scraping the sides down with a spatula and it’ll soon release oils and become creamy like peanut butter. When you can see no pieces of hazelnuts it’s time to add the oil and sugar while the motor is running at a slow speed.
- Add the cocoa powder and vanilla essence last. Your nutella is ready!
Whatever the toppings you choose, don’t forget to do the tiniest dusting of icing sugar on top. It’s going to be less than a teaspoon by weight, and it looks beautiful like snow.
You’re never too old to enjoy a little bit of dusted sugar.
