Banana Pancakes with Sugar Cane Syrup (Dairy Free!)

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Howdy! This week I am going to share with you my favorite 🤩 recipe for banana pancakes! AND, if you are a fan of pancakes and live in Costa Rica, you will also especially love my recipe for sugar cane syrup! Click here to jump straight to my sugar cane syrup prep.

Why banana pancakes?

Well, first of all, you might imagine that bananas are plentiful here where we live. We have lots of them growing here at Cold River Homestead and can often have a 100 pound rack of ripe bananas all at once, so it is great to have lots of different uses for bananas!

You can make these banana pancakes with previously frozen (and now thawed) bananas, very ripe bananas, or just regular ripe bananas. All of them would work well in this recipe.

Now, if you are familiar with banana pancakes, you probably know that most people make regular pancakes and then slice up bananas and place them on the pancakes while they are cooking on the griddle. I mean, this is fine and all, but do you ever have the bananas stick like crazy to your griddle and then also have the bananas get all gooey? Also, the banana flavor is only in the section of the pancake with the banana slices lucky enough to not have stuck to your griddle. Soooo, I take a different approach.

Naturally dairy free!

You see, I like my sweet banana flavor all throughout my pancake, so I blend up my bananas, thinned out a bit with water and then use that as my liquid for the pancakes. BOOM! Banana flavor permeating throughout the pancakes! And, because we use the banana/water blend, we don’t need a milk (dairy or other) to moisten our dry ingredients!

But wait, there’s more! We also don’t need butter or an oil inside the pancake mix to make this work either!

AND, for those that are calorie conscious, those switcheroos will majorly reduce the calories and fat grams for these pancakes.

Now, we will still need a little oil or fat to pan fry our pancakes, but not as much as if we had added them to the pancake mix!

Bananas are also naturally sweetened, so you may find that you don’t even need a syrup for these babies! However, I say what are pancakes without a sticky, delicious sweet syrup on top!!

Why sugar cane syrup for banana pancakes?

Well, if you live in Costa Rica or other areas far from the United States or Canada, you likely find that maple syrup is INSANELY expensive. However, many, many people move or travel to this area and miss their maple syrup from back home. Well, I make a delicious, rich syrup that works splendidly for pancakes, waffles, and even cinnamon rolls, made from the local and easily obtained cane sugar blocks!

These sugar cane blocks go by many names, including dulce, tapa dulce, or panela, but they are rich pure sugar cane blocks made by concentrating down the liquid from pressed sugar cane. To make my sugar cane syrup (or miel de caña as we call it), I rehydrate these blocks into a thickened syrup perfect for a maple syrup replacement! It has a rich, complex flavor that absolutely works for pancake syrup! 😋

Let’s make sugar cane syrup!

To start with, you will need a sugar cane block. These vary a bit in size, but they are generally around 550 grams. If yours is much different in size, you may need to adjust the liquid a bit here….

I plop this cane sugar block in a medium-sized pot then I add in 1 1/2 cups water. If your block is much smaller, you may need to add less liquid. If your block is bigger, you may want to add a little more liquid. Make sure to use a pot with ample headspace, as this sugary mixture can bubble over while it cooks, if you aren’t careful!

Now, cover your pot and cook on a medium to medium-low heat until block is completed dissolved, stirring occasionally. Make sure to keep your pot closed as much as possible to prevent liquid loss. After the syrup is done, remove the pot from heat.

Let pot cool (covered) around 20 minutes and transfer to a heat-proof glass jar. If your syrup is too thick here, you can add a little bit of water if necessary. Use it right away to have hot syrup or chill the syrup and use whenever that pancake craving strikes! This stuff lasts for months in the fridge.

Now, with syrup in hand, let’s make some pancakes!!

Let’s make some banana pancakes!

To see how I make my dairy-free banana pancakes, check out my instructional video here! I also have a section at the end showing you how I make my sugar cane syrup.

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