Dom Davis (The Blog)

I like Alpen. It’s tasty and it’s got raisins in it which must mean it’s healthy. It’s also got added sugar (as evidenced by the no added sugar version) which may or may not outweigh any raisin based health benefits. Since I’m on a pretty extreme diet (which is going swimmingly, thank you ) I looked at perhaps making my breakfast lower in calories by replacing my Alpen with something else.

First thought was toast. Good old marmite on toast. No, my diet app informs me that this is 300 calories (really?!) and not enough fibre to start my day meaning I’ll be hungry.

Fine, let’s go with no added sugar Alpen. I discovered very quickly that while it looks like normal Alpen it is in fact constructed from little flakes of cardboard cut out and coloured to resemble Alpen but with none of the flavour, save what little taste the raisins can add. Not wishing to be put off I decided to work out what sacrificing taste really gained me. Got to be worth 50 calories at least?

A quick check of the box and we find a portion of Alpen is 146 calories. Compare that to no added sugar which only comes to 141… hang on a minute… 5 calories? I can burn that just smiling about the fact I don’t have to eat the no added sugar crap.

Next up, time to check my portion size compared to the official portion size. According to the box 1 portion is 40 grams. According to my scales 40 grams of Alpen would leave a mouse hungry. Come 10am you’re going to be starving which leads to snacking and before you know it you’ve eaten a whole packet of chocolate biscuits. No, 80 plus grams is much more like a real serving (120 would be better) and that pushes the calorie count up somewhat.

OK, so let’s go the full hog, let’s accept it’s going to taste of cardboard and leave you miserable all day. Let’s eat Special K. Except its diminutive 117 calories comes from a 30g portion. For comparison that’s about the weight of one raisin in my Alpen¹ and if we scale that up to the [now comparatively massive] default Alpen portion it’s nearly 152 calories! For the slow among you: that’s more than my added sugar Alpen.

So what have we learned? Well for starters we’ll be sticking with Alpen for breakfast, and double portions at that ( even occasional forays into Coco Pops won’t hurt provided I don’t do the whole megaportion thing) and when they say “can help slimming as part of a calorie controlled diet” we need to remember that anything (even lard) will make you lose weight as part of the calorie controlled diet. It’s the calorie controlled bit that’s key.

Meanwhile I look for other areas to save on calories. It’s got to be one of the: amount of carrots I eat; the amount of fruit I eat; or all the kebabs. I suspect it’s the carrots.

¹OK, maybe not, but you get the idea.

In my previous blog I documented the procedure for creating perfect pancakes. Since it is Jif Lemon day I decided to once again share my pancake making knowledge with the world¹.

You will need (per person):

• 1 Large Egg (I’m not going to go all ecomentalist on you but free range do taste better)
• 4oz plain flour (sieved if you can be bothered, can cut down on lumps or extra whisking)
• 0.5-1.5oz sugar (use less if you’re making savoury pancakes, more for sweet)
• A quarter of a pint of milk (roughly, depends how thick you want your mixture)

You will also need:

• A mixing bowl (the more people you’re making for the bigger it will need to be)
• A mixing implement (wooden spoon, metal spoon, whatever floats your boat really)
• A whisk² (at a push you can get away with just stirring with a spoon)
• A pancake griddle³ (no, not a pan, see the footnote)
• Optionally: a measuring jug to poor the mixture into (makes it easier to poor into the griffle)

The method:

Sieve (if you’re into that kind of thing) the flour into the mixing bowl. Add the sugar and made a depression for each egg (you can use the egg itself for this). Crack the egg(s) into the mixture and add a small amount of milk. Mix the mixture with the wooden spoon slowly adding more milk. Once all the milk is mixed in take the whisk and go to town. Whisk forward. Whisk backwards. Whisk holding the whisk still, whisk while moving it about⁴. When the mixture is smooth and the constituency of thick soup you’re done. If you have the measuring jug poor the mixture into that, otherwise you’ll need to arrange some way to ladle, poor or otherwise decant the mixture from the bowl to the griddle.

Heat the griddle over a medium flame⁵, poor enough mixture to cover the griddle to a depth of about 2mm. Cook until you see the bubbles that form on the surface of the mixture burst and the surface become solid. Flip the pancake⁶ and cook the other side. Once done put on a plate and consume.

These pancakes can be served with sugar and Jif Lemon (the traditional way), with butter and topping (jam, honey, golden syrup) or with savoury fillings. My favourite is tuna mayonnaise with sweetcorn. Go to town, have fun, knock yourself out. The possibilities are endless and the world is, quite literally, the bivalve of your choice.

One tip is to make up the mixture with less sugar, make savoury pancakes for main, scoff those, add sugar to the remaining mix, make more pancakes, consume for pudding.

Enjoy.

¹Do bear in mind we’re British here, so none of this ridiculously thin French crepe rubbish, nor the stupidly thick, heart attack inducing thick pancakes. These are just right.

²Manually whisking is a pain in the behind, I recommend one of the whizzy whisks when you turn the handle and the two beaters spin. Great for getting rid of lumps in the mixture and huge fun to boot

³Using anything but a pancake griddle here is tantamount to drinking champagne out of a pint glass. We’re not heathens here people, we’re British, we do things properly or not at all. A griddle will be properly seasoned. To maintain the seasoning you don’t want to wash it. To avoid having to wash it you want to just cook pancakes and drop scones on it so it can be wiped clean. You go using something that you also cook bacon and eggs on and it’s going to get washed up and the seasoning will go, you could get flavours leaking in, it might not heat evenly, it might cause the pancakes to stick. No, right tool for the job so if you don’t have a griddle I suggest you go toddle off and get one now, I’ll be waiting when you get back… off you go… quickly!

⁴All this does rather assume the manual whisky thing. If you’ve got a boring hand held whisk (or no whisk at all) then you’re going to miss out. If you’ve got an electric whisk then you’ll probably be done before you have a chance to have fun.

⁵Not using gas? Hah! Good luck

⁶This doesn’t need implements but then you’re probably ignoring my insistence you use a griddle so you’ve only got yourself to blame if you can’t just flip the pancake using the pan and a deft wrist motion.