Cooking with Sugar (aka Pancake Day)…

Tags

bananas, caramelised onion, crepes, homemade, pancakes, peanuts, salted butterscotch, seeds, stilton, vegetarian

I’ve been a wee bit busy over the last few days, so i apologise for the lack of posts. A combination of a trip to see the family- meeting my nephew and celebrating the Chinese New Year with my momma and then returning to find that both me and Callum are ill. Hooray for January!

Still, Shrove Tuesday waits for no man/ illness and what better medicine than an array of deliciously fresh, hot pancakes, served with a decadent assortment of flavours… I was thinking of posting this yesterday afternoon but i figured you all have your own method/ style of pancakes. To me, they are steeped in tradition, our family has a golden ratio for creating the perfect crepe, where as Callum’s version are more akin to American Pancakes. I decided to be laissez- faire about the preparation and combine both recipes, for the actual cooking- the savoury element was traditional Armstrong crepes and for the sweet, smaller, fluffier Alden cakes.

(Serves 2 for a main course and pudding, or 4 as just a main)

Alden/ Armstrong Pancake Batter:

6 tablespoons of Plain Flour
6 tablespoons of Self Raising Flour
1 tablespoon of Caster Sugar
1 teaspoon of Baking Powder
1 small pinch of Salt
2 Eggs
150ml Whole Milk

Sift the flours and baking powder into a measuring jug
Add the sugar, salt and eggs and whisk together with a fork
Add the milk slowly, (heres where you can choose what style of pancake you want- more milk equals crepes, less milk, American Pancakes)
Whisk until you have a very smooth batter
Pop in the fridge for at least 30 minutes
When your ready to cook your pancakes, heat a frying pan until its pretty darn hot
Add a small knob of butter and use a piece of kitchen roll to spread the butter round the pan
For the crepes, i used 2 tablespoons of batter, tipping the pan to ensure the batter spread out to roughly the size of a plate
Cook for about a minute on each side, flipping regularly
For the smaller cakes, i ladled one tablespoon of batter for each cake, cooking three at a time…

Whilst the batter was chilling, i cracked on with the filling. This is where the title of this post comes into play- caramelised onions and salted butterscotch sauce… mmm… sugar…

Caramelised Red Onions:

1 1/2 sliced Red Onions
tablespoon of Olive Oil
1/4 teaspoon of Sea Salt
tablespoon of Caster Sugar
3 tablespoons of Balsamic Vinegar

Heat the oil in a medium pan, add the onions and salt and cook for 5 minutes on high, or until the until are quite soft
Add the sugar and cook for 2 minutes
Add the vinegar and cook for about 8 minutes, until the onions are nice and syrupy
These onions will keep for about a week

For my savoury crepes, i wanted to have a good mix of textures. Theres nothing better than biting into a fresh pancake, sinking your teeth into sweet onions, the crunch of freshly toasted seeds, the play of oozy melted cheese…

I cooked off three pancakes. I then heaped 2 tablespoons of the onions into the middle of each. Added a good handful of toasted seeds and crumbled some Stilton on top. I then rolled them up and carefully put them back in the frying pan (on a medium heat) and cooked for 2 minutes, before carefully turning them over to cook for another 2 minutes. This way the cheese was lovely and melted. Served on a bed of salad leaves, dressed in a drizzle of Olive Oil.

Salted Butterscotch Sauce:

50g Unsalted Butter
100g Caster Sugar
teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
2 teaspoons of Sea Salt
60ml Double Cream (we only had Single but it worked just as well)

Melt the butter in a small pan
Add the sugar and cook for 6 minutes, try not to stir the sugar, instead swirl the pan around
As the sugar is starting to bubble quite rapidly, add the salt, vanilla and cream
Cook for about ten minutes, or until the mixture has moved to a deeper, more golden colour

I served 4 small pancakes each, with thinly sliced Banana, coated in butterscotch sauce and topped with freshly toasted raw peanuts.