Happy Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day. When I was little my mom would always make heart-shaped pancakes with berry syrup or scones with red colored sugar on top. Always something special. So today I decided to try my hand at something special for breakfast.

I have never tried to make paleo pancakes, and I know there are a lot of recipes around to choose from, but being adventurous, I decided to just make up my own. (I tend to be perhaps a bit overly confident in my abilities in the kitchen sometimes.)

So, after ransacking my cupboards, freezer and pantry, this is what I came up with:

Tropical Paradise Pancakes

1/3 cup hazelnut meal
1/3 cup blanched almond flour
1/3 cup dessicated unsweetened coconut
2 eggs
1/3 cup cream (use coconut milk if you need to avoid dairy)
1 Teaspoon vanilla
1 T. honey
1/4 t. salt
1/2 t. baking powder
bacon fat or butter

Mix dry ingredients. Blend wet ingredients in food processor until foamy, then pour into wet ingredients, mixing thoroughly. Let sit for two minutes stirring occasionally, as you heat a skillet to medium. Melt just enough fat in it to coat the surface and prevent sticking. (I used bacon fat, but butter would be good as well). Measure the batter out in 1/4 cup servings, placing in the middle of the skillet and tipping it to let the batter spead itself out in the proper fashion. When bubbles form (there will only be two or three) flip the pancake and let the other side cook for about a minute--the time will depend a great deal on your skillet and temperature, so use your own experience and judgement. Remove each pancake to a plate and cover until all pancakes are done. This amount of batter should give you six small pancakes approximately. I served mine with raspberry puree.

Raspberry Puree

1 cup organic frozen raspberries (I used Trader Joe's)
1/4-1/2 cup hot water
4 drops stevia extract

Add hot water to frozen berries in your blender or food processor. Blend until throughly pureed and the consistency of berry syrup adding water as needed. I added stevia as well, but you can enjoy them plain, or with honey or agave depending on your tastes.

The raspberry flavor complimented these pancakes, and my dear M gave me a 9 out of 10 rating for them and said they were just as good as "normal" pancakes. Very sweet of him! I think the flours could be switched out for any type of nut flour, or even flaxseed meal. Some people are not wild about coconut (my mom for example does not love coconut) so I think it would be equally good with maybe golden flaxseed meal in place of the coconut, or coconut flour (which typically tastes less like coconut) and extra vanilla to hide the flavor...