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Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Try This Pancake Batter Recipe This Weekend

Sift the flour and sugar into a bowl. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Add the lemon zest, milk, egg and melted butter/margarine and whisk to combine. Heat a large non stick frying pan over medium low heat and grease lightly with butter or oil.
For each pancake, place 2 tablespoons of batter into the pan. Cook for 2 minutes or until bubbles form on the surface. Turn and cook for a further 1 to 2 minutes or until the pancakes are cooked through.

Ingredients

1 cup self raising flour
2 Tbsp Chelsea White Sugar
½ tsp finely grated lemon zest (optional)
1 cup milk (or Soy/Rice milk)
1 egg, lightly beaten
30g butter, melted (or margarine)

To serve:
2 bananas, sliced
1 punnet blueberries (or frozen berries defrosted)
Chelsea Maple or Honey Maple Flavoured Syrup

How to make better pancakes

Pancakes are flat cakes made out of a batter that's cooked in a frying pan or crepe pan
Sweet or savoury, they can be served for breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert, and in many cases as an appetiser
In France they prefer thin, lacy crepes, in the US (where fortunately they are called hotcakes, griddlecakes and battercakes) pancakes usually are thick and fluffy
Mini savoury pancakes, known as blini, hail from Russia and Poland, while pikelets are small, thick, sweet pancakes which can be popular in Britain
If you need to make a number of pancakes effortlessly, make sure you have the following kitchen equipment and items readily available before you begin:
a non-stick frying pan for making pancakes, pikelets and blini
a steel crepe pan or an 18cm (base measurement) non-stick frying pan in making crepes
paper towel and salt to season a new steel crepe pan
butter as well as a pastry brush or paper towel to grease the pan
a teaspoon (for blini) as well as a dessertspoon (for pikelets) to measure out even quantities of batter

There are 2 types of pancake batters - pouring batters and thick or "drop" batters
Pouring batters are widely-used to make crepes and possess the same consistency as thin cream and contain no raising agents
Drop batters are utilized to make pancakes, pikelets and blini, and contain a raising agent including baking powder
To these basic batters you may also add flavourings such as fruit, nuts, cheese or herbs
For expert results, follow these three simple measures:



Step 1: Always sift dry ingredients, such as flour, raising agents or spices, into a bowl before combining them with the liquid ingredients. This will ensure your batter is light and airy.
Step 2: Don't overmix pancake batter as this will stop the raising agent from aerating, which will make the batter tough and leathery and result in flat, dense pancakes. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, then add the combined liquid ingredients, such as milk, butter and eggs, to the well. Use a balloon whisk to gradually draw the dry ingredients into the liquid, whisking constantly until a smooth batter forms.

Step 3: To produce light pancakes, the flour particles in the batter need time to expand. To achieve this, cover the bowl and place it in fridge for 30 minutes to rest before using.