So yesterday was Pancake Day! If you're not lucky enough to be aware of this, put it in your calendar for next year. Shrove Tuesday is the day before Ash Wednesday and was traditionally a day to use up all the fatty and indulgent things in your household ahead of the start of Lent the next day. Pancakes clearly being the height of indulgence, it is now Pancake Day. In England we have our pancakes very thin and lacy, quite like crêpes, usually with sugar and lemon. Whilst this is DELICIOUS, can anyone truly deny Nutella? Man alive.
Those who have read my previous baking posts will probably know that my mum has type 2 diabetes, and I don't like to flaunt the lovely things she can't have if I can help it. She makes a beyond delicious cake with almond flour, so I got to thinking I could just use almond flour in the pancake mix instead of regular plain flour. I googled it, but couldn't seem to find anyone who had attempted it for anything other than American pancakes. Don't get me wrong, I adore stacks of pancakes, but this is a day that calls for them being thin and as big as your face. I intend to give drop scones with almond flour a go some day soon, mum used to make them for breakfast and...it's making me too hungry to think about, we'll move on shall we?
First things first, I got the important things into the kitchen.
After consulting with mum, she let me know that she usually uses a small amount of plain flour in with the almond flour. As I was working with a recipe asking for 120g of flour, I decided to make it 100g almond flour to 20g plain. Then I discovered we had 36g of plain flour left and it seemed silly to keep 16g, so in the whole lot went and was topped up to 120g.
2 eggs in a well, 210mls of milk mixed with 90mls milk, a pinch of salt and a tbsp of vegetable oil later, you have the batter, similar consistency to single cream. Generally speaking...you should let it rest for like...30 minutes.
But I lead a busy life and I'm sure you do too. Into the frying pan it went, a small ladle at a time, maybe a touch more.
These were thicker than I'd like, but so delicious regardless. If it's thicker wait for bubbles to form on top before flipping, thinner and you use some judgement.
You know what successfully happened?! I flipped the pancakes! All of them! Multiple times. They survived. How happy did that make me? Beyond happy. The almond flour makes it a little weaker than the plain flour might, so they had a little less structural integrity when transferred to the plate, but the important part is that they survived the flipping.
After the first round we decided to amp up the almondy deliciousness, and added the merest droplet or two of almond essence. It worked, do it.
I may have not had the discipline to wait to take a photo before having a bite.
They were amazing, lovely and light, and I defy you to say that raspberries and Nutella is not a winning combination. Also, who can deny skoosh? Not me. Ever.
I may have not learnt my lesson and still not had the discipline to wait.
Any other slightly less than traditional pancake day recipes out there? Anything almond flour-y that I just have to try? Let me know, I'm up for whatever.
Stephie
P.S. I got myself a twitter account specifically for the blog, look for me @Challenge_Steph!
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