Gluten Free Pancakes & Pear Compote

For the pear topping:
Peel and chop the pears into small ¼” to ½” sized pieces. Add the chopped pears to a small saucepan with about 2 tablespoons of water, lemon juice, salt and cardamom. Cook pears, covered, over medium heat. After about 8 minutes, add another couple tablespoons of water and continue cooking.

Cook until pears are softened and begin to caramelize, leaving the saucepan covered and stirring every couple of minutes. This process should take 30 to 40 minutes. This may seem like a lot of time, but if you start the pears first and make the pancakes while they’re cooking, they will be done right around the same time as your pancakes.

If at any time the pears begin to stick to the bottom of the saucepan, add a little more water. The topping is finished when the pears are softened but al dente and there is a little bit of thick, sweet sauce coating the pears.

If desired, add some sugar, honey or agave. When the pears cook and caramelize, they get very sweet, so I didn’t add any extra sweetener.

For the pancakes:
In a mixing bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, oil, agave and vanilla extract.

In a separate bowl, stir together the garbanzo bean flour, baking powder, and salt. Pour the flour mixture into the egg/almond milk mixture and stir well. The batter will have small clumps. This is okay. Allow batter to sit 10 minutes.

Heat a large skillet just above medium heat (but below medium-high). Add about 1 tablespoon of oil or a combination of oil and butter.

Measure out 1/8 cup of batter and pour it on the hot skillet. Allow the pancake to cook until a great deal of small air bubbles rise to the surface, about 45 seconds. Flip to the other side and cook an additional 30 second.

Place pancakes on an oven-safe plate in a warm oven (around 200ºF) until you’ve finished cooking all the batter so that the pancakes stay nice and warm. Cook just above medium heat (below medium-high).

Serve pancakes with caramelized pears on top!