Dom Davis (The Blog)

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.