Macadamia Nut Pancakes with Bananas

I got an interesting tip from a guy at my local Trader Joe’s this week about adding nuts to pancakes. He suggested that I grate the nuts using a microplane or other very fine grater instead of chopping them up. This technique has plusses and minuses. The plus is that you really disperse the nut flavor throughout the pancake, so you can taste it in every bite. The downside is that you don’t get any of the crunch that you get from adding in chopped nuts. I’ll probably use both methods from time to time. This time, I used the grating method to make macadamia nut pancakes.

I simply used my microplane to grate some toasted, lightly salted macadamia nuts directly into some buttermilk pancake batter. You need to watch your fingers a bit as you do this, but the nuts grate down so smoothly and easily that it’s not difficult to handle them at all. I grated the nuts right into the bowl and whisked them into the batter. I could taste macadamia nut in every single bite of the pancake – and it didn’t take very many nuts to let the buttery, nutty flavor come through! I topped the pancakes off with some freshly sliced banana and some maple syrup.

Macadamia Nut Pancakes with Bananas
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1 large egg
1 cup buttermilk
2 tsp vegetable oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp macadamia nuts, toasted
freshly sliced bananas
maple syrup

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and sugar.
Add in egg, buttermilk, vegetable oil and vanilla and whisk until batter comes together and no streaks of flour remain. It is fine for the batter to be a bit lumpy.
Use a microplane and grate macadamia nuts directly over the bowl and whisk in.
Preheat a griddle or nonstick pan over medium-high heat. When a drop of water dropped onto the griddle dances around on the surface, it is ready. Drop batter by 1/4 cups (or desired size) onto the griddle and cook until browned, then flip and cook to brown the other side.
Serve with freshly sliced bananas and maple syrup.

Serves 2-3