Pancakes with Yaycon, yoghurt & apple sauce

This is an all round recipe you can use for sweet or savoury pancakes, adding more sugar to the batter if needed or jazzing it up with fruits like sliced or mashed banana, fresh blueberries etc. The savoury combo I did here have a nice balance between both sweet and savoury flavours making it a meal and a dessert in one, perfect for a fussy, moody brain the middle of the day.

Makes: 16 pancakes/4-6 servings Difficulty: Very Easy

Pancake batter ingredients:

• 300g self raising flour or 350g gluten free, self raising flour

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1 tbsp demerara sugar

• pinch of salt

• 1/4 tsp xantham gum (optional, read below)

• 400g soya milk

• 1 tbsp lemon juice

Toppings:

For each plate: 3-4 Yaycon slices, heaped tablespoon of apple sauce, 2 tablespoons of yoghurt, maple syrup followed by lemon zest, toasted seeds and parsley to finish.

You can use plain flour instead of self raising in this recipe. Just add 3 extra teaspoon of baking powder and 1 tsp of bicarbonate soda

Xanthan gum works similarly to gluten so if you're opting for a gluten free version adding a small amount of it will help to deliver more spongy texture (quite often it is already an ingredient of some of the store bought flours although, if you're not sure yours contain it adding an extra 1/4 tsp to the batter won't do you any harm). Always mix it with dry ingredients first and avoid touching it with your hands - it is very slimy and difficult to wash off!

Method:

1. In a medium to large mixing bowl whisk all of the dry ingredients together then slowly pour in the milk and lemon juice mixing well until smooth and thick batter formed.

2. Place a big, non stick (like cast iron or teflon) frying pan over the medium high heat.

3. Add a little bit of oil to the frying pan and as soon as its hot, with a ladle pour over the batter mixture. You should be able to cook 3-4 at the same time, depending on the size, shape of them and the skillet you're using.

4. In a separate pan, under the grill or in the oven reheat the Yaycon slices. Couple of minutes on each side will be plenty.

5. Start plating up by placing 3-4 pancakes on each plate, top with the Yaycon slices, yoghurt, apple sauce, maple syrup then rest of your garnish.