Showing posts with label Pancake Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pancake Day. Show all posts
Tomorrow is Shrove Tuesday, or pancake day as it is lovingly referred to throughout the Christian world. This is the last day before Ash Wednesday which marks the beginning of Lent. Traditionally on Shrove Tuesday families would use up the last of their flour and eggs before the Lenten fast by making pancakes for their families.
When I was growing up, this was the only day of the year where we got pancakes. My mother never cooked them at any other time. Hers were the big fluffy ones that you associate with North American pancakes and they were very good.
One year though, when we were visiting our French Grandmaman, we children all got very excited because our Grandmaman said she was making us pancakes.
They were not the pancakes we were used to however, they were French crepes. We were a tad bit disappointed because they were not what we were expecting! Naughty children.
As I got older I used to long for some of my Grandmaman's pancakes. Imagine my delight when I moved to the UK and on the very first Pancake Day discovered Traditional English Pancakes! These were just like my Grandmaman's pancakes! Heaven, heaven, heaven.
These are light and thin and ruffly and golden brown and delicious! Thinner and much larger around than the North American pancake, these have been gracing British tables since the 1400's, traditionally served with lemon and sugar.
I suspect perhaps they are a throw back to William the Conqueror and the Normans from France, but don't quote me on that. I am no historian!
It is said that more than 135 million pancakes are scarfed down every year in British households on Shrove Tuesday. I was surprised at just what a huge tradition is Pancake Day is there!!! Its a very popular thing and the shops advertise all the makings and trimmings for a few weeks in the run up to the day.
Communities have pancake flipping contests and races and everything. I loved it! A day celebrating one of my favorite foods!!
For the recipe I am sharing today I have taken the cheek of borrowing the best from two British cooks, Mary Berry and Delia Smith. There were only slight differences in each recipe.
Delia used two full eggs. Mary only one egg and an egg yolk. I have always thought Delia's to be a bit eggy in flavor and so opted to use Mary's measurements for the eggs.
Delia added butter to her batter however. I am not one to turn up my nose at the addition of butter to anything and so added butter to mine, with most delicious results.
What you have here is a very tasty mish-mash of the best! I hope you will give them a go and if you are very brave you may even want to try flipping them in the pan!
WHAT YOU NEED TO MAKE AUTHENTIC ENGLISH PANCAKES
Very simple everyday ingredients. There is nothing complicated here. I have converted from British Measures to North American and shown you both.
- 1 cup plus 2 TBS (125g) all purpose plain flour
- 1 large free range egg plus 1 large egg yolk
- 1 1/4 cups (300 ml) whole milk
- 2 TBS butter, melted
- pinch salt
HOW TO MAKE AUTHENTIC ENGLISH PANCAKES
Don't be afraid. They are really very simple to make. The first one is always a bit of a throw away as you adjust your temperature and amount of batter, etc. They get better as you go along! (Even the duds taste good!)
Sift the flour into a bowl along with the salt. Make a well in the center.
Start to whisk in the egg and egg yolk, pulling a bit of flour from around the edges of the well as you go along.
Then start to add in small quantities of the milk gradually, whisking continuously and pulling flour from around the edges as you go. Don't worry if you see a few lumps, they will be whisked out.
Once all the milk has been added scrape around the edges with a rubber spatula to incorporate any stubborn bits of flour. Whisk until the batter is smooth and has the consistency of thin cream.
Whisk in the melted butter.
Heat the pan over medium high heat until hot. Brush the pan with a bit of oil or butter. Ladle in about 2 to 3 TBS of the batter, tilting the pan to coat the bottom of the pan evenly with the batter.
Cook over medium high heat until little bubbles appear on the surface and the underside has begun to brown (45 to 60 seconds.) Carefully flip over, using a palate knife or flexible spatula. Cook on the other side for about 30 seconds until golden.
Slide the pancake out of the pan onto a plate.
Heat and lightly grease the pan as before. Repeat for each pancake, until all the batter is used up. Don't worry about stacking them on the plate. If they are hot when you stack the, they will not stick together.
Serve as per your desire. (I like to sprinkle with lemon juice and granulated sugar and roll them up or fold them into quarters. Rolling them up is very traditional.)
And there you have it, authentically English pancakes in all their glory. Thin and lacy, golden brown, deliciousness. Cousin to the French Crepe.
You can fill them if you want. Nutella is a favorite filling in the UK, and more people are embracing the use of Maple syrup. I like them in the more traditional way, sprinkled with lemon juice and scattered with a bit of granulated sugar. Its an incredibly simple but very moreish way to eat them! I highly recommend!
Now that I have whetted your appetite for pancakes perhaps you may enjoy some of these other recipes. All of them are delicious! I promise you!
APPLESAUCE PANCAKES WITH A SPICY APPLE SYRUP -These delicious pancakes are moist and fluffy, with a slightly sweet and spicy apple flavour. The apple syrup makes the scrummiest topping.
FLUFFY RICOTTA PANCAKES. These fluffy pancakes have a deliciously creamy texture. They make a particularly scrumptious breakfast for that special someone in your life, but they also make a delicious dessert when topped with sweetened whipped cream!
OATMEAL COOKIE PANCAKES - Oatmeal Cookie Pancakes are the best! You get all the wholesome and nutty flavour of a tasty Oatmeal Cookie . . . except in the glorious deliciousness of a breakfast pancake!
Yield: 12 pancakes
Traditional English Pancakes
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 15 MinTotal time: 25 Min
These are very similar to French Crepes. Thin and lacy around the edges. Beautiful sprinkled with lemon juice and sugar, then rolled up to eat.
Ingredients
- 1 cup plus 2 TBS (125g) all purpose plain flour
- 1 large free range egg plus 1 large egg yolk
- 1 1/4 cups (300 ml) whole milk
- 2 TBS butter, melted
- pinch salt
Instructions
- Sift the flour into a bowl along with the salt. Make a well in the center.
- Start to whisk in the egg and egg yolk, pulling a bit of flour from around the edges of the well as you go along.
- Then start to add in small quantities of the milk gradually, whisking continuously and pulling flour from around the edges as you go. Don't worry if you see a few lumps, they will be whisked out.
- Once all the milk has been added scrape around the edges with a rubber spatula to incorporate any stubborn bits of flour. Whisk until the batter is smooth and has the consistency of thin cream.
- Whisk in the melted butter.
- Heat the pan over medium high heat until hot.
- Brush the pan with a bit of oil or butter. Ladle in about 2 to 3 TBS of the batter, tilting the pan to coat the bottom of the pan evenly with the batter.
- Cook over medium high heat until little bubbles appear on the surface and the underside has begun to brown (45 to 60 seconds.)
- Carefully flip over, using a palate knife or flexible spatula. Cook on the other side for about 30 seconds until golden.
- Slide the pancake out of the pan onto a plate.
- Heat and lightly grease the pan as before. Repeat for each pancake, until all the batter is used up. Don't worry about stacking them on the plate. If they are hot when you stack the, they will not stick together.
- Serve as per your desire. (I like to sprinkle with lemon juice and granulated sugar and roll them up or fold them into quarters. Rolling them up is very traditional.)
Thanks so much for visiting! Do come again!
Hello Pancake Day, and hello Silver Dollar Pancakes! Of all the pancakes that I make, this Silver Dollar Pancake recipe is my favorite. This is one of the best mini pancake recipes out there, and I don't make that claim lightly!
The size of a silver dollar and crisp edged these are fabulously tasty and so much fun to eat. You can actually cram whole one in your mouth if you want to, not that I am doing anything like that! 😳😳😳 (Who me?)
When my own children were growing up, this was their often requested favorite pancake for me to make for them. I confess, I liked them too. Pancakes was a favorite breakfast for when they had guests over to stay the night and of course we ate oodles of them on Pancake Day!
When I was a child there was only one time during the year that my mother made us pancakes. Shrove Tuesday, otherwise known as Pancake Day.
Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday is the traditional feast day before the beginning of Lent, or Ash Wednesday. Lent (the 40 days before Easter) was traditionally a time of fasting for Anglo-Saxon Christians.
Shrove is another name for the word "shriven," meaning to go to Confession and be absolved of your sins. Ancient Christians used this day as a day to rid themselves of things like flour and eggs prior to beginning their fast on Ash Wednesday.
Many Christians in the world still practice the Lenten Fast today, using it as an excuse to give up something they really enjoy for forty days. You will see people giving up things like chocolate or beer, etc. It is meant to be a sacrifice and a way or showing their faith and belief in Jesus Christ and what He did for mankind.
We have never practiced Lent in our family but we have always practiced Pancake Day! (And Pancake Saturdays! What can I say, we LOVE pancakes!)
The British have a lot of traditions that they carry out on Pancake Day like pancake races and pancake flipping contests. In many homes children try to see who can eat the most pancakes.
In Great Britain pancakes are usually much thinner than these, like crepes. They are not eaten with syrup for the most part, being eaten sprinkled with lemon juice and granulated sugar and I have to say they are quite delicious.
I have to say however, the North American in me loves the fluffier North American version. I suppose it is all a matter of what you have grown up with. I can remember my French Canadian grandmother making pancakes for us once when we were visiting.
My brother, sister and I were all very excited about the prospect until she put them down in front of us. They were crepes, not pancakes, much like British pancakes, and I think we were quite disappointed. They were delicious however, buttery and of course they were served with Quebec Maple Syrup. Its a cultural thing, these food differences.
These have always been the favorite kind of pancakes I made my kiddos. Silver Dollar Pancakes. Mouth stuffing sized pancakes.
Light and fluffy with crisp edges, and just a tiny bit of crunch from the cornmeal in the batter
Light and fluffy and tender. Perfect for spreading with oodles of butter and dousing with lashings of maple syrup.
I can remember when I first arrived in the UK, maple syrup was something which I had carried over on the plane with me. A whole 4 liter can of it. You could do that back then. This was pre 9/11. You could not do it now, but then again maple syrup is much easier to find in the UK now.
It was as scarce as hen's teeth back in 2000. As a Canadian I didn't think I could live without my maple syrup and so I brought it with me. I have always liked to plan ahead.
In any case we enjoy these pancakes with plenty of maple syrup. You can of course enjoy them with whatever syrup you choose to enjoy them with!
I also like to serve some fruit with them if I can. Usually berries of some sort or even tinned sliced peaches.
Both are excellent. If you have never tried tinned peaches with pancakes, you really should!
We also enjoy breakfast sausage or bacon with ours. Both go very well with Maple Syrup as well. Trust me on this.
It might be the French Canadian in me, I don't know for sure. This love of all things with and of maple.
You can keep these warm in the oven while you are cooking them until you have the whole lot done. If your children are like mine were, you may even need to double the recipe.
Then again, I had five children with their mouths gaping open like little chicks waiting for these pancakes to fly into them! That's a lot of pancakes!
In any case there is no better way to celebrate pancake day than by cooking up a mess of these delicious Silver Dollar Pancakes for your hungry brood.
For breakfast or for supper. With or without maple syrup and butter. With or without sausage or bacon. One thing is certain and that is that they are going to be very popular with everyone. I guarantee!
Silver Dollar Pancakes
Yield
Makes 18 (3-inch) pancakesAuthor
Marie RaynerSimple and delicious. Kids love them, both the young and the "old." But then who wouldn't love a "Silver Dollar!"
Ingredients
- 2 cups (280g) of all purpose/plain flour
- 2 TBS of yellow cornmeal or coarse polenta
- 1 TBS baking powder
- 2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 large free range eggs
- 2 cups (480ml)of buttermilk
- 5 TBS of sunflower oil
- more oil for greasing the pan
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, cornmeal, baking powder, soda and salt together in a mixing bowl.
- Beat the eggs until light and fluffy in another bowl. Whisk in the buttermilk and the oil.
- Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and add the liquid ingredients all at once. Stir until just combined, without overmixing. The batter will have small lumps.
- Heat a griddle pan or heavy skillet over medium heat until a drop of water skips across the surface. Lightly grease with some oil.
- Using a ladle, spoon batter onto the griddle in scant 2 TBS measures, leaving a few inches between each pancake.
- Cook until bubbles form on the surface and the edges are dry, with golden brown bottoms. Flip over and cook for about 30 to 45 seconds longer until golden brown on the other side.
- Keep warm in a low oven until ready to serve. Repeat to use up all the batter.
- Serve hot with butter and plenty of real Maple Syrup!
It hard to believe that tomorrow, the 25th of February, it is Pancake Day. This was a day that we used to really look forward to when I was a child because it was the only day my mom would make us pancakes, so it was a once a year treat for us! I am sure my mom's arms got tired standing at the stove cooking them for us! We ate our fill! She had an old wearever aluminium griddle pan that she used.
It looked just like this and after many, many years of use, it was bowed in the middle and no longer sat flat on the burners. My mom never ever had any other set of pots and pans and these were all she used until the day she passed away. I am not sure what my sister did with them. I suspect she gave or threw them away. They had no real value except for nostalgia's sake.
As a food blogger it can be somewhat of a challenge to show you something different each year when it comes to days like pancake day. This year I am sharing my Sweet Milk Pancakes, their shape being inspired by Ma Ingalls from the Little House books.
This comes from the Little House in the Big Woods.
"For breakfast there were pancakes, and Ma made a pancake man for each one of the children. Ma called each one in turn to bring her plate, and each could stand by the stove and watch, while with the spoonful of batter Ma put on arms and the legs and head."
"It was exciting to watch her turn the whole little man over, quickly and carefully on a hot griddle. When it was done, she put it smoking hot on the plate."
I cannot for the life of me think of any kind of pancake that might taste better to a child than a pancake man! Some of mine turned out not too bad . . .
Some turned out a little bit on the wonky side, which only added to their mystery and deliciousness . . . I think this was the most unsual of all of my efforts!
I took little squares of sweet butter and carved them into hearts to put onto the men. I thought it would be quite cute! I think it was . . .
No matter how wonky or unsual the men were, the butter heart told a story. It was the story of "I love you."
Look at them sitting there, just waiting to be gobbled up! Oh how I wish I had some grandchildren close by to feed these delights to!
Delicious, light and fluffy, served up piping hot with plenty of pure Maple Syrup to drizzle over top.
The big child in this house gobbled them right up, while Mitzie watched in anticipation. She always hopes for a tiny taste at the end.
Yes she is rather spoiled and truth be told, she doesn't care what shape her treats are that we share with her. She's just happy to have them, and I will tell you now, that I allow for a certain amount of treats in her alloted food for the day so that she isn't overfed.
This is a really lovely pancake recipe, wether you bake them as men, or as rounds. Light and fluffy . . . not too sweet. There is plenty of sweet with the syrup.
If you are not making Pancake Men, you can bake these in rounds, and even drop on bits of fruit while they are baking on the griddle. Chopped peaches, blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, even chocolate chips and bananas . . . all are very good.
When my own children were growing up we usually had pancakes on Saturdays, and of course any time they had a friend to stay over night . . . and yes also on Pancake Day.
Like my mother, my arms would get tired standing at the stove cooking their fill. With five hungry children you can imagine that took quite a while. Like my mother, it was always a true labor of love.
Sweet Milk Pancakes
Yield: Makes 8 to 10 pancake men, or 20 - 24 round pancakes
Light and fluffy. Serve hot with butter, maple syrup and fresh fruit if desired.
ingredients:
- 75g butter, plus extra for buttering the griddle pan (1/3 cup)
- 300ml milk (1 1/4 cup)
- 2 large free range eggs
- 180g plain flour (1 1/3 cups)
- 1 TBS caster sugar
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- maple syrup, butter and fresh fruit to serve
instructions:
How to cook Sweet Milk Pancakes
- Put the butter and milk into a small saucepan. Heat gently to melt the butter. Set aside to cool.
- Lightly beat the eggs and then whisk in the milk and butter mixture, combining well.
- Measure the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar into a bowl. Add the wet ingredients all at once. Stir together to combine just until the dry ingredients are incorporated. The mixture doesn't need to be completely smooth, and in fact is better if you don't overmix it.
- Heat a large griddle pan and butter it lightly by rubbing the surface carefully with a piece of kitchen paper towelling that has been dipped in softened butter.
- To make pancake men (and I suggest you do these one at a time) ladle a circle of batter into the centre with a smaller circle on top for the head and four appendages at the sides for the arms and legs. Cook until bubbles break on the surface, then carefully flip over and cook on the underside for a further minute, or until golden brown. Scoop off and keep warm in a low oven while you cook the rest.
- To make regular pancakes, ladle spoonfuls of the mixture onto the pan for each pancake, up to 5 or so at a time. Cook as above.
- Serve warm with plenty of syrup for pouring, butter for spreading and, if desired, fresh fruit.
If you are interested in exploring all of the varieties of pancake recipe that I have posted on here through the years, I did a post back in 2016 listing all of them. You can find that post here. There is something there to suit every taste! Happy Pancake Day!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Social Icons