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| Yay. I know what this means... |
What a lovely day we've had today - the first time we've ever visited the cinema as a family. We went to watch Wreck it Ralph in 3D - the little ones and my first 3D film as well. The film was absolutely brilliant - after having four kids I've been exposed to pretty much every kids film in the last 18 years. Repeatedly. And they are good, better than what I had as a child, but this one really stood out. My concern was that the boys wouldn't be able to sit still for two hours, but it kept their attention throughout. After the cinema, the kids wanted McDonalds, I couldn't bring myself to eat that after the continuing Horsegate scandal, and so Mr G and I had Fish and Chips. I have just spent just short of two hours making pancake mix and cooking 38 pancakes. They took - maybe ten minutes to disappear. Golden Syrup, chocolate spread, Maple Syrup, lemon and sugar.
I'm not a natural cook, as my husband will testify. I'm very much a self-taught later-on-in-life cook. And I agree that cooking is a science, so with the exception of a few dishes, I always follow a recipe. My mother can just shove ingredients in a bowl and come out with beautiful cakes. I have to weigh everything. I can't make pastry, and another thing I
can't couldn't make was pancakes. Try as I might. Watching one of Nigella's programmes a good few years ago, must be at least 6 now, and she had made this pancake mix consisting of flour, baking powder, bicarb, sugar and salt. She kept it in a big plastic tub, and then when she wanted pancakes she just added milk, eggs and melted butter to a weighed amount of mix. Looked simple, tried it, was simple and that's the recipe I have used ever since. If it ain't broke...!
I won't put the recipe up here, as you know my paranoia with copyright issues - even though I see all manner of things and pictures posted on blogs - knowing my luck, I'll end up in prison or something for posting something in good faith. So here is the link to
Nigella's recipe that I used.
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| The dried ingredients weighed out |
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| Milk, eggs and butter added and well whisked |
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| Add a small ladle of mixture and book until bubbles appear |
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| Turn pancake over using a thin fish slice |
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| Perfect! Only 37 more to go... |
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| Done. Realise now why we only eat them once a year... |
Hope everyone had their pancakes. I had meant to be a little more original with them this year, experiment with some savoury fillings but life and everything in between gets in the way when you're a mother of four. I think I did well just getting this lot done for everyone! Have you got a favourite filling? I don't think I can decide!
That stack looks delicious! My grandmother is German and taught us all to make German pancakes (which are like crepes but thinner and crispier around the edges when made like we like them :)) with white sugar and grape jelly on the top. Now, I'm pretty sure the grape jelly thing was an Americanized version :).
ReplyDeleteThey were lovely, Fawn, but it's heartbreaking that they take so long to cook and so little time to eat. I have to add that they weren't huge pancakes and we didn't eat all those after dinner, they were our dinner that night!
DeleteI love thin pancakes but I just can't seem to make them? These are more like what we call Scotch pancakes in the UK, and they can be made thicker and smaller but that would have taken forever. I've never tried or heard of grape jelly before either! That sounds really nice! Might have to see if I can make some :-)