When the bananas head south, it’s time to make banana bread. But what if you’re tired of banana bread? What if you’re bored by banana bread? What do you make then?

Generally, I would say banana pancakes, but it just so happened that I had brown bananas and buttermilk in the fridge at the same time…which sparked some creativity.

What you see here is a buttermilk pancake with slices of caramelized banana baked into it. Oh yeah. Want to give it a try?

Banana-Button Buttermilk Pancakes

Ingredients:
2 eggs
2 c all-purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2 c buttermilk
4 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 ripe bananas
Oil or cooking spray

Directions:

1. In medium or large bowl, beat eggs until frothy.
2. Add buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla. Mix well.
3. Add flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir until just blended (it’s okay to have some lumps.)
4. Grease griddle and heat to medium high.
5. While griddle is heating, slice bananas. Thin slices are better, but don’t go crazy.
6. Pour about 1/3 c of batter for each pancake; quickly place sliced bananas into batter. I found that four in a sort of button arrangement worked well, but I may just have a thing for oversized buttons.
7. Cook until bubbles form on the tops and the batter is set; flip and cook other side until golden. (The side with bananas in it will take significantly longer to cook.)
8. THEY WILL STICK TO YOUR SPATULA so be prepared to scrape off caramelized banana and reapply grease often.
9. Repeat until you’re out of batter or bananas or both. (If you run out of bananas, these are tasty without them as well.)

Serve warm with syrup.

BONUS RECIPE!

I love homemade fresh fruit syrup on my pancakes, but the last thing I need to be doing while flipping flapjacks is running over to the stove to stir a pot of syrup. One day it occurred to me that I could make syrup in my bread maker and it would regulate the cooking and stirring for me. (You can even put it in a bit ahead of time and set the timer so the syrup is hot and ready at the time you want to have dinner!)

Berry Syrup – in the Bread Machine

Ingredients:
1 lb (approx 3 cups) of fresh or frozen (thawed) berries
1 c sugar

Directions:

1. Wash (if fresh) and finely chop or smash berries.
2. Pour berries into bread pan; add sugar.
3. Set bread maker to “Jam” cycle and walk away!

This recipe makes about 2 cups of syrup. If your bread maker has a 2 lb capacity you can double it! Mmmm. We had strawberry syrup on our banana pancakes, and it was delicious!