Barefoot Bloggers: Banana Sour Cream Pancakes

I have joined yet another cooking group. Someone stop her before she bakes again! As of this month, I am a member of the Barefoot Bloggers, who make two Ina Garten (also known as The Barefoot Contessa) recipes a month. I have two of her cookbooks, thanks to my brother Tim and sister-in-law Angela (thanks guys!) and I like that it's every other week, so not a huge commitment, but gets me in the kitchen.

The other day I made these lovely pancakes. Can you say "Christine has never cooked pancakes in butter before"? I had a heck of a time keeping these from burning. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the very beginning. (A very good place to start.)

I was excited about this recipe because I often put bananas on my pancakes. Sliced up with some maple syrup, and a few chopped pecans...heaven! It was very easy to put together. The very first time I try a recipe, I attempt to follow it exactly. Then if I don't like it, I know it was the recipe and not me doing something wrong. Then I can adjust from there or ditch it. So since I was following directions, I actually sifted my dry ingredients together. WHAT? You SIFTED? Yes, I sifted. Here's the proof.

My new sifter that I got at the kitchen store.

They made me stop playing with the handle because it was noisy and annoying. (But it's fun!)

Action shot! Yeah! Go, dry ingredients, go!

Next I put together the wet ingredients. I got to use my new Microplane grater (thanks again Tim and Angela!) to zest my lemon. It is so sharp! I was having a hard time getting the lemon to move across it and I couldn't figure out why. Then I realized I was pressing WAY too hard on the lemon and it was getting stuck. I'm so used to using my crappy grater and pressing down hard to get it to work. This was a breeze once I clued in.

Ooo, shiny. (The grater, not the lemon.)

Of course, now I have a half naked lemon in my fridge. I'll have to find a recipe to use it. Maybe I can make lemon-flavored kale since that's still in my fridge, too.

So here are the wet ingredients all combined.

Yowza. So glad I took THIS thrilling picture.

I mixed up the wet and dry ingredients and got some...batter! Whoo-hoo!

Sorry, I am feeling like this was kind of a weird recipe to document. It's not like you don't know how to make pancakes. Or you've never seen batter before. But, oh well, we'll just keep going.

Finally I chopped up a banana. I was so happy, I ACTUALLY REMEMBERED to buy bananas a few days before making this. Usually I forget, then have to use unripe fruit, which is gross. But my bananas were perfect. Not green, but not yet turning brown, or mushy, or smelly, or all of the above. Can you tell I'm banana picky?

Go banana go. Go banana go. Go banana, go banana, go banana go!

(Sorry, had a cheerleading moment there.)

I heated some butter in the pan. Now as I mentioned before, I have no previous butter-pancake experience. When I was a child, we used bacon grease for frying. ACK! Arteries clogging! But it was soooooo good! Later on we switched to cooking spray or vegetable oil. So this whole butter thing threw me. But I was FOLLOWING DIRECTIONS like a good little girl.

After pouring in the batter, I added a spoonful of banana to each one. I don't think I've ever said "spoonful of banana" before. Sounds weird.

My only issue in making these was that I kept burning them, especially the edges. My stove is seriously old and doesn't cook super evenly, so that might be part of it. But I just couldn't seem to find the right temperature to actively cook them without scorching them. I will probably go back to oil or cooking spray next time.

So pretty! (Ignore the black edges. Stop looking. Stop it!)

I made them all beautiful, decided to add pecans because I love them so (my only deviation from the directions) and took a big bite. Bleh! Yuck! What is wrong with these pancakes? Oh my gosh. The bananas cooked. It didn't occur to me that the bananas would no longer be raw inside. DUH! Something about the texture and flavor of the cooked banana just didn't work for me in this. Too mushy or sweet compared to the sourness of the lemon and sour cream maybe? Or possibly, I am too used to having fresh bananas on my pancakes. I don't know. But I didn't really like them. I'm sure it's just a personal thing, and if you wanted to make these they might be great for you. But I made the rest of them without adding the banana pieces. I liked the flavor much better that way and they cooked a little more evenly.  But I still burnt them. Darn it!

Check back in two weeks for another Barefoot Blogger creation. Until then, here's the recipe if you want to try them for yourself! But I should tell you. Lisa at Magic Sprinkles used the recipe analyzer on this, and it is definitely NOT in the Shrink My Butt Cooking Light category. Consider yourself warned.

Banana Sour Cream Pancakes
recipe from Food Network

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
• 2 extra-large eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• Unsalted butter
• 2 ripe bananas, diced, plus extra for serving
• Pure maple syrup

Directions

Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream, milk, eggs, vanilla, and lemon zest. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ones, mixing only until combined.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat until it bubbles. Ladle the pancake batter into the pan to make 3 or 4 pancakes. Distribute a rounded tablespoon of bananas on each pancake. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until bubbles appear on top and the underside is nicely browned. Flip the pancakes and then cook for another minute until browned. Wipe out the pan with a paper towel, add more butter to the pan, and continue cooking pancakes until all the batter is used. Serve with sliced bananas, butter and maple syrup.