"Love is a Bicycle with two pancakes for wheels"...Jarod Kintz

...Not sure what that quote means...or who Jarod Kintz is...What I really wanted to say is "Happy Pancake day"

 I made up two batches of pancake batter this morning. One with regular white flour, the other spelt. Two big jugfulls, ready for supper. But we couldn't wait and tried them out at breakfast.  
Here are the recipes:

To make White Pancakes you will need:

Ingredients for about 24 pancakes (you can half if you want less)

• 4 eggs
• 8oz/ 220g sifted Self Raising flour or Plain with a tespoon of baking powder 
• 14fl oz/ 400ml of milk and water. Ratio about 50:50
• 4oz/ 100g of melted salted butter. If not using salted butter you may like to add a pinch of salt to the batter.
• Vanilla extract. If you want savoury pancakes omit this.

Method:

1. Sift all the dry ingredients into a large bowl.
2. Make a well in the centre. Crack the eggs into the well and mix together.
3. Add the milk and water slowly into the batter, mixing well.
4. Add a couple of tablespoons of the melted butter and combine, reserving the rest for cooking the pancakes. I then pour the batter into a jug it's much easier then to put the right amount into the pan in one go.
5. Pour some of the remaining melted butter into a frying pan. Make sure the base is well coating but not running with it. You may like to use some kitchen towel to do this.
6. Get the pan hot, then reduce the heat and start making your pancakes. Pouring a little into the pan  and allowing it to run around and coat it all. 
7. Give each one enough time to set before turning over and you should have no problem.

These are lovely served with maple syrup and maybe a little icing sugar or lemon juice.

To make Spelt Pancakes

• 7oz/2cups of wholegrain spelt flour ( I'm working through a 25kg sack of Dove Farm Organic and highly recommend it.)
• A tbsp of baking powder. Spelt flour can be a little heavy so this extra lift is good.
• 14fl oz milk/1 3/4 cups
• 1oz/2tbsp salted butter plus extra for . If using unsalted you might like to add a pinch.
• Again you may like to add a little vanilla extract or seeds. 

Method:

1. Melt the butter
2. Sieve all the dry ingredients into a large bowl and give them a good stir, making a well in the centre.
3. Combine all the wet ingredients and pour into the well in the flour.
4. Leave to stand for 20 minutes or so. 
5. Butter the pan and heat up, reduce the heat and add ladle in some batter. This batter is much less runny than the white one. This makes nice firm little pancakes.
6. Cook on side for a few minutes until bubbles begin to appear and then flip over and cook the other side. 

Serve straight away, however you like them...

Then at lunch time while making sweet potato soup I remembered the Spelt pancakes with cream cheese and butternut squash recipe that The Voluptuous Miss Dahl makes. You can find it on page 99 of her book. I couldn't resist trying something similar. So I improvised, pinching some of the sweet potato that had been cooking with shallots, celeryand spices. Then mixed it with garlicky cream cheese and lots of crushed black pepper and baby spinach instead of parsley. Served up with a spelt pancake it was one of the best lunches ever. I'd go so far as to say that it was dangerously more-ish...

 Oh and this is how the rest of the quote goes... “ You may see love as more of an exercise in hard work, but I see it as more of a breakfast on the go.”   ...make what you will of it...

...and talking about pancakes I found this little film over here at the weekend and tried to share it with you...but something went a bit wrong...so I'll try again...

bye for now
debx