Vegan Banana Pancakes... of DOOM!

Class W (aka Block 4) was being introduced to this week's cooking labs. We're making vegan pancakes. "Aw!" whined the class. "Why?" I asked. "What do you know about vegan food that makes you disappointed about this lab?" They didn't know. One asked, in disgust, "Is there going to be tofu in this recipe?"

Why? Actually, a severe egg allergy, that's why. Since Class W has a cluster of nut and peanut allergies, they were a bit more understanding once I explained.

I read out the ingredients: flour, baking powder, sugar, a mashed banana and soy milk.

"Soy Milk? But males aren't supposed to drink soy milk. It makes us less... less... um... manly."
Now, since it was an egg allergy we were avoiding, I could have used regular milk, but I wanted an opportunity to introduce a vegan recipe. And my vegan student seemed happy enough - but I think they use this recipe at home... and her group made beautiful pancakes.

Almond milk is out, of course, all those nut allergies. There's still "oat milk" and "rice milk"... but let's not go crazy here.

Three classes of vegan pancakes later... my 11 and 12 year old boys are less "manly" but the pancakes were pretty good. Some groups inexplicably made pancake "scrunchies" - pancakes which refused to be flipped and instead scrunched up like angry fists. Some pancakes refused to cook, despite the seemingly functional electric grills.

The biggest obstacle continues to be ingredient disbursal - I just haven't found an efficient way for all 6 groups to get their ingredients quickly and accurately. This means that the last group to get organized enough to send their unit manager for ingredients doesn't stand a chance of finishing on time.

Like this, only worse.

Next time... for sure.