Shrove Tuesday
Don’t forget, it’s Shrove Tuesday today, now more commonly known as ‘Pancake Day’. Pancakes were traditionally eaten on the day before Ash Wednesday because they were a way to use up the eggs, milk, and sugar before fasting for Lent.
Here’s a great recipe from Beechwood Fine Foods in Tring for Apple and Cinnamon Pancakes.
Ingredients
Basic Pancake Mixture:
- 140g plain flour
- 200ml whole milk
- 2 eggs
- 25g unsalted butter, melted, plus a little extra for greasing
Topping:
- 1 eating apple (or pear) peeled, cored and cut into wedges
- 20g butter (approx)
- 1 tbsp light muscovado sugar
- ¼ tsp ground cinnamon
- Vanilla ice cream
How to make it:
- Sift the flour with a pinch of salt into a bowl and make a well in the middle. Mix the milk with 100ml of water. Break the eggs into the well and start whisking slowly. Add the milk and water, whisking constantly and gradually incorporating the flour.
- Set the batter aside to rest for 30 mins (if you have time), then whisk the melted butter into the batter.
- Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Very lightly grease the pan with melted butter and pour roughly 2 tbsp of batter into the pan. Swirl it around so the bottom of the pan is evenly coated.
- Cook the pancake for about 45 secs on one side until golden then flip the pancake over and cook the other side for about 30 secs until it freckles.
- Slide the pancake out of the pan and either serve immediately or stack on a plate with baking parchment in between.
- Serve the traditional way with fresh lemon juice and caster sugar or follow the additional instructions below for the Apple and Cinnamon version.
- Melt butter and sugar in a pan and add apple wedges and cinnamon. Cook until golden and tender.
- Place two warm pancakes on a plate. Divide the apple mix between them and fold over into quarters.
- Serve immediately with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
You could also try omitting the cinnamon and adding a little cream to the apples just before serving to make a ‘butterscotch sauce’ or, for the adult version, add a splash of Calvados!