More like banana bread than an oatmeal cookie...

Jen and Steve departed yesterday for their long drive back to Minnesota, so we are slowly getting back into our daily routine. I did, of course, make some treats for them to enjoy on their 17 hour trip, but I'll be posting about those tomorrow! Today should have been a busy day, but I felt more lazy than normal - I usually like to mow the lawn on Friday's, but it has just been so dry around here that the grass does not want to grow.

Since we really didn't plan ahead for dinner tonight as this week was so hectic, I asked Jeff what he would like - he wanted breakfast for dinner, so I browsed through my recipe stash and plucked out a pancake recipe. These Oatmeal Banana Bread Pancakes were based on a recipe from Rachael Ray, but after tasting them, we both thought a change to the recipe title was called for. With apologies to Ms. Ray, they did not really taste like "oatmeal cookie pancakes", however, they sure did come close to banana bread!

Some dry ingredients including old-fashioned rolled oats, flour and rich brown sugar are spiced up with our favorite Vietnamese Cassia Cinnamon from Penzeys Spices along with some toasted walnuts for crunch. Keeping these pancakes extremely tender is a few heaping spoonfuls of sour cream that is blended with milk, eggs, vanilla and mashed bananas to moisten the dry ingredients. For a touch of extra sweetness and texture, plump golden raisins are stirred into the batter before cooking these golden rounds. I don't think I would classify these as "light and airy", but they are not heavy either - they have a hearty chew to them while still having a bit of lift. Feel free to douse these in sticky maple syrup, but we choose to lightly dust them with snowy confectioners' sugar to let the pure banana flavor shine through.

Recipes
Oatmeal Banana Bread Pancakes