Pancakes and for that matter pancake batter, yes it is the very same stuff that makes Yorkshire pudding, must be one of the world’s simplest and best cookery inventions. You can of course go a bit fancy with the recipe to make crepe, adding melted butter and half milk and water, but in general the plain recipe is best. It does get better with age and if you leave it overnight the mixture makes a better pancake. Lemon and sugar, butter and sugar, golden syrup, even melted cheese and ham make fantastic fillings. For pancake day I am also offering up melted mars bar sauce on a vanilla ice cream filled pancake. Not light but very tasty!
The other trick is how you get an even but very thin coating of butter. To do this you need to use a potato. Cut it in half, melt a large knob of butter in the pan with a little oil. Pour out the butter mix into a small dish. Then stab the potato with a fork, with the flat cut end facing away. This can then be dipped in the butter and used to spread it around the pan.
Pancake – Ingredients
1 small pack of plain flour
3 large eggs
Pinch of salt
1 pint of milk
Put all the ingredients into a bowl and using a hand held blender, blend until smooth. The mixture should have the consistency of single cream, if not add more milk until it does. Heat the pan until it is hot, use the potato and melted butter to get it as thin as possible. Pour the batter into a corner of the pan and tip it around all the edges. Once set, flip them and cook on the other side for one minute.
Melted Mars Bar Sauce
2 Mars Bars
1 Small pot of double cream
Chop the mars bars into small bits. Heat the cream until boiling. Add the chocolate and heat gently stirring until melted. Fill the pancake with vanilla ice cream. Roll and pour over the sauce.
