Banana Brancake
Why a brancake?
For as long as I can remember I’ve been the “always hungry” type. I could eat a meal, have seconds, have a food coma, and then be hungry again.
I wanted to break out of this pattern for the primary reasons of:
- Keeping my waistline in check.
- Avoiding the afternoon slump i.e. food comas.
- Not being a hangry monster.
I watched some good videos with titles like Why diets fail and Eliminating stubborn belly fat. I also enjoyed the book How to Eat.
The main takeaways were:
- Crash dieting always fails.
- The only good diet is one you can sustain as a permanent lifestyle.
- A diet is only sustainable if you’re not hungry all the time.
- High fiber foods make you feel satisfied for longer and avoid food comas.
- Many food-like products are processed to remove the fiber so you won’t feel full.
This got me thinking: I want to eat fiber-rich foods!
I searched around for foods that contain lots of fiber. Wheat bran was always near the top of the list. I found some interesting recipes, but many of them had added sugar or high-sugar fruits. A pancake made with wheat bran piqued my interest and ticked my boxes.
I tried several variations until settling on ingredients and ratios that worked well for me and consistently produced pancakes that were easy to make, nice to eat, and most importantly: kept me feeling full all morning.
Preparation
I make these brancakes every morning. To keep the daily bake simple, I pre-mix all the dry ingredients and store them in a container. That way in the morning I just have to mash up the banana, whisk the egg, and then add some dry ingredient mixture. Easy.
Dry ingredients
Like most recipes, the amounts here are not an exact science. They’re what I’ve roughly settled on after trial and error and what I like.
It’s easy to make in any quantity you want by following the parts. Then you can use cups, decilitres, heaped spoonfuls, whatever you like, and just keep the ratios the same.
Add everything to a bowl and mix it up with a whisk.
| US Measure | Parts | Ingredient |
|---|---|---|
| 2 cups | 4 | Wheat bran |
| 1 cup | 2 | Whole wheat flour |
| 1 cup | 2 | Oats |
| ½ cup | 1 | Oat bran |
| ½ cup | 1 | Flax seed |
| 1 tsp | Baking powder |
Making one brancake
- ½ ripe banana, mashed with a fork
- 1 egg
- splash of milk (optional)
Mix it all up with the fork.
This usually mixes well with 4 heaped tablespoons of the dry mixture.
If it seems too dry, add a splash of milk.
That’s it! I cook it in a small pan with coconut oil on medium heat, flipping it once bubbles start to appear.
Bubbles means it’s about ready to flip.
The finished product
I usually have a drizzle of maple syrup on them. Sometimes a bit of crunchy peanut butter. If I’m feeling decadent, pistachio cream is fantastic.
Served with maple syrup and raspberries.
Half maple syrup, half pistachio cream.
Nutrition Facts
These nutrition facts are per 100g of the dry mixture:
| Ingredient | Fat | Carbs | Fibre | Protein |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wheat bran | 1.0g | 4.0g | 9.9g | 3.5g |
| Wheat flour | 1.0g | 25.8g | 4.3g | 4.9g |
| Oats | 0.5g | 4.1g | 1.6g | 2.3g |
| Oat bran | 0.7g | 5.9g | 1.2g | 1.6g |
| Flax seed | 2.6g | 0.1g | 2.0g | 1.5g |
| Total | 5.8g | 39.9g | 19.0g | 13.9g |
Each brancake uses about 50g of the dry mixture, so we can cut those numbers in half and then add the numbers for an egg and half a banana to get:
| Per brancake | |
|---|---|
| Fat | 8.1g |
| Carbs | 35.5g |
| Fibre | 11.3g |
| Protein | 13.6g |
We can subtract the Fibre from the Carbs to get 24.2g of Net Carbs which are carbs actually absorbed by the body.
Recommendations for daily intake of fibre vary by source and your calorie intake but, 25g is a typical target. So one brancake gets you about halfway there!
Conclusion
I’ve been eating these every day for a year now and I haven’t got sick of them. They usually keep me satiated until lunch time and then some, so I can say I’ve met my goals with these things.