Rainbow Banana Pancakes with Bourbon Syrup

This weekend is the Sydney LGBTI Mardi Gras! A celebration of how far we have come in our acceptance of other people's life choices and a reminder of how far we still have to go to deliver full equality to all people regardless of sexual preference or gender! To celebrate Mardi Gras I've made incredible rainbow pancakes - it's pretty much like eating a rainbow! A delicious rainbow.

This recipe is part of the Holiday Recipe Club's Mardi Gras Blog Hop. Each blog hop participants are given three ingredients and a holiday to celebrate with the challenge of making a dish for this occasion using at least one of the ingredients. Last month's valentine's day blog hop I used the theme ingredients of Strawberries and 'Heavy Cream' to make an amazing Vegan Strawberry Cherry Sago Trifle. 

I always try and use at least two of the three ingredients and this month the ingredients include banana and bourbon. So - I decided on rainbow banana pancakes with bourbon syrup. You might think bourbon syrup sounds a bit odd, but actually when you think about it bourbon is a very sweet spirit -it basically tastes like whiskey with a couple of tablespoons of sugar added. In fact the guy at the bottle shop when I bought the bourbon told me that somebody had once given him whiskey with sugar added and he couldn't distinguish it from bourbon. Unfortunately, this proved an expensive theme ingredient for me because I can tell you that bourbon is not the kind of thing I keep around the house so I had to go out and buy some! It made an absolutely delicious syrup though.

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups soy milk
1 tsp apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups soda water or mineral water
2 cups wholemeal flour
1 banana, mashed into a smooth paste
Red, yellow, green and blue food colouring
6 tbsp nuttelex (or other non dairy margarine)
1 cup bourbon
4 tbsp raw sugar
Fresh blueberries and banana, to garnish

To Make:
1. Whisk the soy milk and vinegar together and set aside to curdle.
2. Add the soda water and mashed banana to the soy milk and whisk together.
3. Slowly add the flour, whisking as you go until a thick pancake mix is made.
4. Get 5 small bowls and ladle equal amounts of the pancake mix into each of them (should be about 2 full ladles).
5. In the first bowl mix 1/2 tsp of green food colouring.
6. In the second bowl mix 1/2 tsp of yellow food colouring
7. In the third bowl mix 1/2 tsp blue food colouring
8. In the fourth bowl mix 1/2 tsp pillar box red food colouring
9. In the fifth bowl mix 1/4 tsp yellow food colouring and 1/4 tsp red food colouring to make orange.

10. In a frypan melt 2 tsbps nuttelex and divide the first coloured mix into 3 pancakes. Fry on a medium heat until bubbles start to appear in the pancake and then flip over and cook the other side.
11. Repeat with the other colours, adding 1 tbsp nuttelex to the pan between each batch.

12. Whilst the pancakes are cooking heat the bourbon in a small saucepan and then add the sugar. Stir until it is all dissolved and then lower the heat and simmer for about 10 mins. Then turn off the heat and allow the sauce to stand for at least 5 mins before using - this will allow it to thicken.
13. Pile the pancakes into a stack (I did red, orange, yellow, green, blue - but it's really up to you!)
14. Pour the syrup over them and garnish with fresh banana slices and blue berry.

Serves 3.

~This recipe is dedicated to A-dizzle~