Pancake Day!

Happy Pancake Day/International Women's Day!

As much as I like pancakes (one of my childhood obsessions was the now sadly closed Dutch Pancake House in Manchester), I am not very good at making them. It's not the mixing or the frying of the pancakes that I can't deal with, it's the flipping. I've just not got the confidence to do an assured flip (I'd be a letdown Blue Peter presenter on the Shrove Tuesday episode). This poses no problem when I'm at home, as my mum is a champion pancake maker, but as with last year I'm stuck here is Bristol. My fear of dropping the pancake is compounded this year by the fact that the hob in our flat is a gas one, and a combination of pancake and flames is not one I really want to experience. And I refuse point blank to buy pre-made ones.

However, I am a dab hand at making American pancakes, which, as well as appealing to my Americophile tendencies, are flipped with a spatula, meaning I much less likely to set myself on fire. Therefore, sacrilege as it probably is, my pancake of choice today will most likely be American. Oddly though, the best American pancake recipe I've found is from one of the most decidedly English cookbooks that I own: The Dairy Book of Home Cookery. It's an old-fashioned, but adorable, book that was first published in the 1960s and features recipes for dishes such as Party Gammon and Jugged Kippers, but also really reliable recipes for more classic dishes. My family's copy is so well used that it's falling apart at the seams, so my mum and I hunted down an elusive extra copy for me to take to Bristol (we eventually found one in a garden centre). 

So here, based on that recipe, are the pancakes I'll be making today:

225g plain flour

4 tsp baking powder

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

350ml milk

25g melted butter (plus extra for frying) 

• Whisk eggs, melted butter and milk together in a jug.
• Add flour, baking powder, sugar and salt to the milk mixture (you could sift them in, but I've found it makes very little difference). Whisk vigorously til well combined - the batter should be a similar consistency to natural yoghurt. Add more milk if too thick or flour if too thin, though it's better to err on the side of it being too thick.
• Heat a little butter on a medium heat in a non-stick frying pan and when hot, pour out rounds of about 12cm/5ins. If the batter is thick enough, it should spread naturally into a smooth-edged circle.
• Cook until the surface of the pancakes looks bubbly, then flip with a spatula and cook until golden.
• Repeat making 10-14 pancakes.
  

I like to eat mine with a little bit of extra butter spread on the top, or sometimes with bacon, though they're probably nice with maple syrup and cream (these pancakes do not lend themselves to eating healthily).  Enjoy pancake day - whatever nationality of pancake you choose to have!