pancake tuesday

Today is Shrove Tuesday... so that means one thing, and one thing only.

Pancakes!

It's about the only time during the whole year where I can be bothered to make pancakes, possibly because I usually overindulge and totally pig out on them, and hence am not really interested in them again for about twelve months.

And when I say "pancakes", clearly I'm talking about the thin delicate crepe kind of pancake... not the fat flurry American kind.

Last night I grabbed "The Usborne First Cookbook" (which I've had for about a thousand years, and I know has a pancake recipe in it) off the shelf, and discovered that because I'm such a creature of habit, I actually had kept the recipe that Ma gave me on a slip of paper where the book's version of pancakes is.

And this morning before I went to work, I mixed up the batter (probably far too much batter to be honest) and left it to brew or ferment or whatever batter does.

I'm not completely sure where the recipe Ma gave me comes from... I'm guessing from my Nanna originally, and possibly from her mother before her... or else from some long forgotten cookbook and just absorbed into the family and claimed as ours.

So I figured I'd share it with all of you. It's not like pancake recipes aren't amongst the simplest things you can make... you can't really go wrong with eggs, milk and flour... but this mixture has never let me down.

Although this time it did do a weird whoopee cushion inflating thing a couple of times that I've never seen it do before... it was fine when they came out of the pan though. I'm guessing it may be to do with the fact the mixture was fermenting for twelve hours.

Pancakes

1½ cups of plain flour
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
2½ cups of milk

Sift the flour and salt into a bowl.

Mix the eggs and the milk and combine with the flour slowly, ensuring that the flour is fully incorporated.

Cover and refrigerate for at least an hour or until needed.

Heat a medium sized frypan (non-stick... because it's just easier) until hot, coat lightly with butter (or use spray oil) and pour in enough mixture to cover the bottom of the pan (normally I use a soup ladle, since it makes for easy pouring) and tilt frypan to let the mixture cover the base.

Once the pancake moves freely in the pan and the underside starts to turn golden, flip it over and cook for another minute or so.

Serve with sugar and lemon, or honey, or Nutella and sliced banana.

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