It’s nearing one of my favourite days of the year! Pancake day! Well it’s actually called Shrove Tuesday, which is marking the 40 days of lent before Easter. So it was traditionally a way to use up these ingredients before the fasting began. Which I think is a great way to use up all these ingredients, What could be better than pancakes! So traditionally in the UK we would have a thin pancake called crepes. These are different to the American style buttermilk pancakes which have a raising agent as well as buttermilk which create a fluffy texture them, where as Crepes is a very liquid batter and spread very thinly over a pan and cooks very quickly. If you don’t have one already, I recommend getting a crepe pan or a shallow pan for cooking pancakes as it makes it so much easier as well as it cooks much quicker. This recipe that I’ve given you is a traditional crepe recipe, which is a great base for whatever toppings you want to add! People can get quite opinionated about what toppings are superior, in my opinion my fave is the classic lemon and sugar. Here is a list of ideas for toppings for pancakes if you are stuck.
- The Classic: Lemon juice and Caster sugar. You could also make a lemon syrup. (recipe down below)
- A slight variation, on the latter. Orange juice and sugar, it’s slightly sweeter but delicious!
- Nutella. I just love it. It works so well with sliced bananas, chopped hazelnuts and berries.
- Maple Syrup and Fresh berries with cream.
- Cream cheese, Honey and Fresh Blueberries and Blueberry compote.
- Peanut Butter, Roasted Apples and Maple Syrup.
- Toffee caramel, sliced bananas and toasted pecans and cinnamon.
- For the savoury lovers, Honey glazed ham with melted gruyere cheese. Delicious!
- Tuna, melted cheddar with spinach and 1 tsp. Sweet Chilli, surprisingly really good!
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In a bowl, weigh the flour, sugar and salt. In a separate bowl or jug, whisk together the eggs, milk, water and vanilla until all mixed together.
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Slowly add the wet ingredients to the flour whisk will adding it in. This will make sure you won’t get a lumpy batter. Once everything is well incorporated, add the melted butter and mix well.
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Place the pan onto a medium heat, add a small knob of butter to pan and let it melt. The pan is hot enough when you see small bubbles coming from the butter. Then get a ladle of the pancake batter and pour into the centre of the pan, rotate the pan round so the the batter will spread around the pan and cook evenly. Cook on one side for about 1 minute until the pancake starts to get golden brown spots, then flip over and cook on the other side.
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Transfer to a plate and eat with whatever toppings you fancy! I’m having mine with lemon and sugar.
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To make the lemon syrup, squeeze about 3-4 lemons to get about 80g juice, then add this to a small pan and add 80g caster sugar. Bring to the boil and cook until all the sugar as dissolved. And that’s it! Pour over the pancakes with more sugar and some lemon zest.
