Chef Makoa
Faʻapapa (Sāmoan Baked Coconut Bread)
A Sāmoan slab bread, dense with grated popo and coconut cream, baked gold in a home oven and eaten with koko Samoa, budget food that still keeps the family close.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Panikeke Faʻi (Sāmoan Fried Banana Pancakes)
Created by
Sāmoa's panikeke faʻi, ripe banana folded into a simple batter and fried until the outside is golden and the inside stays soft, sweet, and ready for a crowd.
Breakfast & Brunch
Polynesian, Samoan
Comfort Food
Budget Friendly
Birthday
15 min
Active Time
20 min cook•35 min total
Yield18 to 22 panikeke
The first thing I remember about panikeke is not the frying. It's the children waiting. In Sāmoa, panikeke faʻi, fried banana pancakes, belong to the aiga, the extended family, and especially to the birthdays and church fairs and market mornings where somebody is always feeding one more mouth than they planned for.
This is Sāmoa's hand, and I say that clean. The old deep foods still sit underneath the table, talo, ʻulu, the palusami parcel full of coconut cream, the umu stones holding their heat. Panikeke came later with flour and sugar and the everyday pantry, but the way Sāmoans took it in, stretched it with ripe faʻi, and made it food for the whole room, that is living culture. Keeper, not gatekeeper.
Across the Triangle, every island has its own sweet fried or griddled comfort. Hawaiʻi has malasadas now through Portuguese hands, the Cook Islands and Tahiti have their own fritters and coconut sweets, and Sāmoa has these round panikeke, sometimes plain, sometimes banana-rich, dropped by spoon into hot oil. Same ocean. Different table.
So don't make them fussy. Let the bananas get speckled and soft. Keep the oil steady. Fry enough that the first plate can disappear while the second batch is still cooking. That's how you know the food found its people.
Panikeke takes its name from the English word pancake, one of the many flour-and-sugar foods that entered Sāmoan kitchens through mission, trade, and colonial contact in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Sāmoan version became its own everyday form: rounded spoon-dropped fritters sold at markets, packed for school fundraisers, and piled high at birthdays beside older foods like talo, palusami, and umu-cooked meats. It is not pre-contact deep food, but it is real Sāmoan food now, proof that island kitchens keep memory and also keep moving.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
very ripe bananas (faʻi)
Quantity
3
mashed
all-purpose flour
Quantity
2 cups
granulated sugar
Quantity
1/3 cup
baking powder
Quantity
2 teaspoons
fine sea salt
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon
large egg
Quantity
1
lightly beaten
milk or water
Quantity
1/2 cup
plus more as needed
vanilla extract (optional)
Quantity
1 teaspoon
neutral oil
Quantity
4 to 6 cups
for frying
extra sugar (optional)
Quantity
as needed
for dusting
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| very ripe bananas (faʻi)mashed | 3 |
| all-purpose flour | 2 cups |
| granulated sugar | 1/3 cup |
| baking powder | 2 teaspoons |
| fine sea salt | 1/2 teaspoon |
| large egglightly beaten | 1 |
| milk or waterplus more as needed | 1/2 cup |
| vanilla extract (optional) | 1 teaspoon |
| neutral oilfor frying | 4 to 6 cups |
| extra sugar (optional)for dusting | as needed |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy 4-quart pot or Dutch oven for frying
- •Deep-fry thermometer
- •Small scoop or two large spoons
- •Wire rack set over a tray
Instructions
- 1
Mash the faʻi
Mash the ripe faʻi, the bananas, until mostly smooth with a few soft pieces left. Use the spotty ones, the almost-too-far ones. Eat what you have, yeah? Those are the bananas that make the panikeke smell like a Sāmoan kitchen before the first one even hits the oil.
- 2
Mix the dry
In a wide bowl, stir the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together so the lift is spread through the whole batch. This is not precious food. It is birthday food, market food, after-school food, the kind that feeds the line of cousins who suddenly appear when frying starts.
- 3
Bring the batter
Stir the mashed banana, egg, milk or water, and vanilla if using into the dry mix. The batter should be thick enough to fall from a spoon in a slow heavy ribbon, not thin like crepe batter and not stiff like bread dough. If it sits too tight, add milk or water one tablespoon at a time.
Different bananas carry different water. No blame the banana. Adjust the batter by sight, because the bowl tells you more than the measuring cup. - 4
Heat the oil
Pour oil into a heavy pot to about 2 inches deep and heat to 350F. If you don't have a thermometer, drop in a small bit of batter. It should rise with steady bubbles and turn golden in about a minute, not sink heavy and not darken right away.
- 5
Fry in spoonfuls
Use two spoons or a small scoop to drop rounded spoonfuls of batter into the oil, a few at a time so the pot doesn't crowd. Fry 2 to 3 minutes, turning as they puff, until the panikeke are deep golden outside and cooked through at the center. The outside should feel lightly crisp under the spoon and the banana inside should stay soft.
- 6
Drain and share
Lift the panikeke to a rack or paper towels and let the oil sheen settle into a warm gloss. Dust with sugar if your table likes it, or leave them plain. Pile them high and serve while warm, because no Sāmoan children's party ever ends with only one.
Chef Tips
- •Use the ripest bananas you have, the soft spotted ones with deep sweetness. Green bananas make the batter flat and starchy.
- •Keep the oil around 350F. Too cool and the panikeke drink oil; too hot and the outside browns before the center cooks.
- •A small scoop makes rounder panikeke, but two spoons are the old weeknight way and they work fine.
- •Serve them warm, but they hold for a few hours. Rewarm in a low oven or air fryer until the outside wakes back up.
Advance Preparation
- •Mash the bananas and measure the dry ingredients a few hours ahead, but mix the batter close to frying so the baking powder still lifts.
- •Fry panikeke up to 4 hours ahead for a party and hold them loosely covered. Warm them in a 300F oven for 8 to 10 minutes before serving.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 47g)
Calories
130 calories
Total Fat
5 g
Saturated Fat
1 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
4 g
Cholesterol
10 mg
Sodium
105 mg
Total Carbohydrates
20 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
7 g
Protein
2 g
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