Tropical Porridge Pancake 'Cookies'

Firstly, I must apologise for the picture. I’m finding it tricky to find natural daylight at the moment to take the photos in.

But that aside – you may be intrigued by the title. I was recently watching an episode of Anna Olson on the Food Network channel and saw her make little ‘what she calls’ griddle cookies. Anna’s cookies were a mixture of milk, oats, maple syrup, cinnamon, almonds and peaches all fried into little mini pancakes. Anna insisted they were just as delicious cooled down and eaten like a cookie at any time.

I love the idea. I love pancakes and porridge oats, so combining the two and eating them at different times of the day other than breakfast sounded like a win-win to me. Plus they are healthy with no added sugar and only a small amount of fat. I wanted to jiggy the recipe about though,  to put my own Cakeyboi spin on things and so came up with my tropical version.

These are full of tropical fruit, rather than peaches, there is honey instead of maple syrup. Instead of cinnamon I used ground ginger and I replaced the almonds with desiccated coconut. For the tropical fruit, I bought a prepared pot, in juice, from the supermarket, making life much easier. The fruits in question were pineapple and papaya, but different brands will vary.

I fried up the batch and tried a few when warm. They were so delicious. I took the remainders into the office the next day and my colleagues loved them cold. So good at anytime , as Anna said.

Here’s how I made mine:

Yield: Approx 30 ‘cookies’

Ingredients:

120 grams porridge oats

315 ml milk (any type, I used Almond)

2 medium eggs

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

80 ml runny honey

35 grams plain flour

1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

250 grams diced tropical fruit, drained

45 grams desiccated coconut

Adapted form Anna Olson:Food Network

Method:

Heat the milk in a saucepan to just below a boil. Add this to the oats, in a large bowl and let them soak for 15 minutes.

In the meantime, sift together the flour, baking powder, salt and ginger and set aside.

In a jug, whisk together the eggs, oil, honey and coconut. Pour this into the flour mix and combine. Transfer this mix to the oats, add the fruit and combine everything.

Place a griddle on your hob, or use a frying pan and lightly oil the base. I used the 1 cal butter flavour spray. Bring to a medium even heat.

Taking a tablespoon, measure a heaped amount of the mixture and place on to the hot surface, spreading out a little. Allow the ‘pancake’ to cook for a couple of minutes then carefully flip over and cook for a further minute or so on the other side. They should be equally browned on either side.

Transfer to a plate with kitchen paper on it, to cool. Make as many as you can at the same time in your pan or griddle.

I preferred them, personally, when they were warm. But everyone else enjoyed them cool. They are like having porridge in cake form. The flavour of honey doesn’t really come through, other than give sweetness. And the ginger is very subtle which some folk could taste and others couldn’t.

But overall, these were a big hit and something I plan to make more of! Enjoy…