English Pancakes

Pancakes are something I used to make fairly regularly when our daughters were still at school, a hearty and healthy breakfast to start the day.  I hardly ever ate them because, by the time I had cooked enough for three girls and my husband, I really did not want to cook another for myself.

Nowadays I make them very infrequently and usually have to look out my recipe because I have forgotten the proportions. So, here we have my favourite recipe for English pancakes – in Florida we generally eat American buttermilk pancakes. My personal favourite filling is gently simmered apples with cinnamon and a dollop of Greek yogurt on top.

If you would like to make the apple pancakes you will need to prepare the apples first.

Braised Apples Ingredients:

• 4 medium eating apples
• 1/2 to 1 tsp cinnamon (to taste)
• 25g butter

 

Braised Apples Method: 

• Peel, core and slice the apples.
• Put the butter into a heavy frying pan (it needs to be one with a lid)
• Add the apples and bring up to a gentle bubbling. Cover and cook on a low heat for about 20 minutes until they start to turn translucent.
• Sprinkle cinnamon over the apples.
  

  Looking nicely translucent and ready for cinnamon and a rest

• Turn off the heat, cover and leave to rest.

Apples nutrition (one fifth cooked quantity):

• Carbs 16g
• Cals 108
• Fat 5g

These braised apples are wonderful put into small individual casseroles, topped with a very small quantity of crumble topping and baked in the oven for about 15 mins to brown the top.

Serve as a dessert with Greek yogurt or cream. Oops I digress! Back to the pancakes!

Pancake Ingredients (5 large pancakes):

• 200ml milk
• 50ml water
• 2 large eggs
• 60g plain white flour
• 60g plain wholemeal flour
• pinch of salt
• 25g butter, melted and added to the mixture
• Extra butter for frying the pancakes

Pancake Method:

• Add the first 7 ingredients to a blender in the order shown (this is simply to make sure the flour does not stick around the bottom of the blender – when it sticks around the top of the mixture its easy to scrape off and blend in). You can sift the flour if you wish but I just measure the flours into a dish and sprinkle them into the blender to incorporate some air.
• Blend until well mixed and the batter will just coat the back of a spoon. Now leave it to rest (while you go have a shower or get ready for the day if you’re making them for breakfast) and turn the heat off the apples if you are making them also.
• If you have workspace next to your cooker arrange the butter, pancake mix, a knife and a spatula on it. I don’t have worktop by my cooker so I use a lovely old Liberian Mahogany chopping board resting on the cooker top. It was made for me years ago by my husband Stuart from the packing case used to transport our belongings back to UK, its very wobbly but the best chopping board in the world. 🙂
• Pre-heat your oven to 100c/210f and pop an ovenproof plate in to warm.
• Quickly (before the butter burns) add about 2/3rds a cup of batter (you need to experiment to get the right amount I just pour from the blender and judge the quantity by eye) gently tilting the pan to spread it evenly around.
• After about 2 minutes it should be setting on top and underneath will be a lovely spotty brown.
• Flip it (I use a spatula as I make an awful mess if I try tossing them) and cook for another 1-2 minutes until cooked underneath.

• Transfer to the warm plate and pop into the oven to keep warm while you cook the remaining pancakes.
• Arrange the pancakes onto serving plates, share the apples between them and roll up.
• Top with a dollop of Greek yogurt and enjoy.
• Of course these are just as good with any other sweet or savoury filling of your choice. Why not post a photo of your favourite pancakes?

Nutrition (per pancake excluding apples):

• Carbs 19g
• Calories 189
• Fat 5.4g
• Sodium 165mg
• Protein 5.9g