Spelt and millet pancakes with homemade applesauce

...I have long kept silent on this blog due to many reasons (time always slipping ayway, basically) but here I am again, sharing not only images, but little notes - this is how I like to call them - about the recipe (you can skip all this and click on the last photograph if you want to read the recipe first).

    I started working on this post two months ago, as I planned to take part in the Salutiamoci project. As I wrote in a previous post, this initiative challenges italian food-bloggers to develop a recipe using only healthy, super natural food. Millet was the key-ingredient for January, and I was more than happy to join in the game (though in the end I couldn't submit the post in due time !!!).

Sure enough, millet is not amongst the most popular grains, here in Italy. People consider it like 'something-you-feed-the birds-with' kind of food. We'd rather go for corn or spelt as an alternative to the all present wheat.

Millet, though, offers many nutritional benefits: it is rich in B-complex vitamins (including niacin, folacin, thiamin, and riboflavin) and in photochemicals including phytic acid, which is believed to lower cholesterol, and phytate, which is associated with reducing cancer risks. It also offers a good source of minerals, including magnesium,zinc, manganese and phosphorus.

The good news is that millet is also tasty and fun to cook with.
I already use its yellowish pearls to bake these delicious patties, but this time I wanted to try something different. As I browsed through my cookbooks and web pages this pancakes recipe really hooked me. I just changed a few of the ingredients and decided to top the pancakes with homemade applesauce. 

We loved them. So I cooked them. Again and again.

So tasty and packed with sweet, natural flavours.

Applesauce is a perfect topping for these pancakes. And you'll become easily addicted to it, since it is a great sweetener for breakfast cereals bowls and for porridge too. Besides, it can be used as a substitute for butter in some baked goods (scones, cookies,etc.) - and this way you'll cut calories and fat as well. As for the ratio, you have to experiment with the particular recipe you are cooking, but you can follow the tips you find here.

 Well, all I have to tell you now is to click on the photo below and read the recipe plus a few more notes you may find useful. Enjoy!