Beans, beans they're good for your....

Khannie

So I had an idea....I was thinking of replacing the oats in my oat pancakes with beans (maybe just partially). Sounds a bit mental, but I did some googling and it turns out that quite a few asian cultures use beans with pastries so it's game on.

I have some questions though: Are some beans better than others? If so, why? Asians seem to prefer aduki / azuki beans. They are reasonably pricey if memory serves and require soaking / boiling.

Lidls have a tin of haricot beans (i.e. baked beans) for 29 measly cent. I was thinking of just washing the tomato sauce off them. I noticed though that there aren't any haricot bean cake recipes. Is there a good reason for that? I've found them fairly tasteless without the tomato sauce.

Lastly, if I blend them up with the other ingredients and leave them soaking / fermenting overnight, am I less likely to get "gas" with them? If so, am I decreasing the amount of complex carbohydrates in them? I mean would the overnight fermentation just produce simpler sugars, undoing the point of having the beans in the first place?

brianthebard

azuki bean rolls are really nice but I'm not sure that translates into nice pancakes. Definitely only partially replace the oats, otherwise it could taste a bit weird. I've read that 1:4 beans: other flour is a good mix. Are you just intending the mash some beans and put them in the mix? Because I think generally bean flour might be the way to go apart from the aforementioned azuki which are used more like raisins than flour. I've been intending to try something similar but haven't actively sought out bean flour yet.

Khannie

brianthebard wrote: »

I've read that 1:4 beans: other flour is a good mix.

Nice one. That's a good starting point. Cheers.

brianthebard wrote: »

Are you just intending the mash some beans and put them in the mix?

I generally blend the stuff up before leaving it to soak / ferment overnight anyway. I was thinking of just dumping some beans in with the stuff that I blend anyway.
I do two blends usually; One before bed, then one after I've added the eggs in the morning.

My pancakes don't have a huge carb content anyway (I'd only take in around 40g of oats in the amount I eat each morning). I've just found that I'm hungry within two hours, despite having a 500+ calorie breakfast and thought the beans might help that somewhat.

brianthebard

Personally I'd look at adding some more fat first perhaps, or something on the side with the pancakes. I find that when eating 'clean foods' like oats I'm hungry sooner after eating than I seem to be when eating 'other' foods. But that could just be in my head. Beans are great and will add fibre too but I don't see why they will help fill you up for any longer? Just curious about what your thinking is here.

Macha

You ever think of adding ground almonds instead of some of the flour?

I'm on low-carb now and I find a lot of the recipes substitute ground almonds for flour.

Coconut flour? Does that exist? Could taste great in a pancake.

El_Dangeroso

taconnol wrote: »

Coconut flour? Does that exist? Could taste great in a pancake.

It does indeed, my local healthfood shop sells the 'Tiana' brand which is quite good. But coconut flour needs about 4 times the amount of 'wet' ingredients as coconut flour soaks up so much. I was making some brownies and it required about 8 eggs for 6 small brownies.

rubadub

taconnol wrote: »

Coconut flour? Does that exist? Could taste great in a pancake.

It does exist and does taste great in pancakes!

I got mine in the spice bazaar shop in blackrock market in dublin. Pretty cheap, it was that east end brand which are decent too. You could just simply add dessicated coconut too, some might even prefer the bit of texture it adds. Almonds & coconut will bump up the calories of course.

The other thing I have used is gram flour, which is sort of like a chickpea flour, loads of protein in it. I also got mine cheap in blackrock though most asian shops will have it. The shop in blackrock has lots of frozen coconut stuff too.

gram flour thread here http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055573644

I make giant onion bhajji type pancakes with the gram flour, it does have a strong taste to it. I dip mine in curry sauce after.

I think I made bean burgers as a kid, drained off the sauce and mashed them into a burger and fried them, can't remember what they turned out like! should be OK on a good nonstick pan.

Macha

Mmm yum! I want pancakes now! I will have to try out the coconut & gram flour ones.

BTW, low carb almond pancake recipe:

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/breakfast1/r/lowcarbpancakes.htm

Sapsorrow

You should check out this site for bean baking recipes:

http://www.thespunkycoconut.com/

She has some good pancake recipes here;

http://www.thespunkycoconut.com/search/label/Pancakes%2FWaffles

I don't find gram flour great for sweet pancakes, but I used to do a breakfast bhaji which was basically a pancake batter with chopped veg, spices and herbs etc fried in a pan.

Khannie

Thanks for the suggestions. Running a bit but....

Not sure about the almond. Calories are a concern. I've stuck some in with tonights batter. Stuck my finger in and tasted after blending. Slightly powdery texture but no major flavour from the beans. We'll see what it's like tomorrow. I used about 40g of beans and 80g of oats (would normally use 100g oats). Brian: wasn't sure if that ratio was volume or weight so went with about mid way for each.

Pembily

Sapsorrow wrote: »

You should check out this site for bean baking recipes:

http://www.thespunkycoconut.com/

She has some good pancake recipes here;

http://www.thespunkycoconut.com/search/label/Pancakes%2FWaffles

I don't find gram flour great for sweet pancakes, but I used to do a breakfast bhaji which was basically a pancake batter with chopped veg, spices and herbs etc fried in a pan.

I love the spunky coconut

I find chickpea pancakes great as a substitute for wheat wraps I have them with fajhitas

Am very intrigued to hear how your pancakes taste!

WesternNight

Haricot beans have something in them that's indigestible by humans, don't they? Hence the gas. I doubt blending them will take that away, so I'd imagine the gas issue would still be there. Not an expert on it though by any means so feel free to correct

It sounds like an interesting idea though...good luck with it!

Khannie

WesternNight wrote: »

Haricot beans have something in them that's indigestible by humans, don't they? Hence the gas.

Yep. Bacteria in your large intestine break them down, releasing gas as they do.

WesternNight wrote: »

I doubt blending them will take that away, so I'd imagine the gas issue would still be there. Not an expert on it though by any means so feel free to correct

No expert here either. I just thought that since I'm leaving it overnight that the bacteria doing the breaking down might occur during that time, pre-releasing the gas if you know what I mean.

WesternNight wrote: »

It sounds like an interesting idea though...good luck with it!

Cheers.

So I had some pancakes this morning. The batter was a bit runny, but I think that was my fault. The pancakes themselves tasted totally fine. A little different, but not really noticeably.

They looked the same anyway.....

Khannie

Forgot to get back to you on this....

brianthebard wrote: »

Beans are great and will add fibre too but I don't see why they will help fill you up for any longer? Just curious about what your thinking is here.

Eh....I'm not sure really. I suppose because 200 calories worth of beans looks HUGE and 200 calories worth of pancakes..well...not so huge. It's probably a load of nonsense alright.

brianthebard

Ah right I hadn't thought about the volume aspect, you're right that can definitely have an effect.