Tomorrow in France, 2nd February,is pancake day, La Chandeleur or Candlemass in English. It marks the end of the Christmas period and the official return of the light. While in England we eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday (17th February this year) to use up ingredients before Lent, in France they eat crepes on Chandeleur to represent the return of the sun. We need very little excuse to eat pancakes in our house and at least once a week we have them for breakfast, so we celebrate both Chandeleur and Pancake day.
When I say pancakes I mean the traditional English ones, thin with frilly, buttery edges. rolled up with sugar and lemon or jam inside, not the fluffy American ones. My pancakes aren’t quite crepes either; crepes tended to be sweetened with sugar or vanilla, which I don’t love, so my recipe is wholeheartedly and apologetically English.
Pancakes were the very first things I ever learned to cook by myself, I’ve been making them for breakfast since I was seven years old. I very rarely measure my ingredients because I make them by eye and feel, but I got the scales out to work out this recipe for you, because I’m asked for it a lot.
Makes approx 10-12 pancakes depending in the size of your pan (my pan is about 24cm in diameter)
200g plain flour
A pinch of salt
2 eggs
450-500ml whole milk
Butter for frying
Put the flour and salt in a large bowl and make well in the middle with a balloon whisk. Crack your eggs into this divot in the centre of your flour and add a small splash of milk. Use your whisk to carefully break up the eggs and milk, whisking in small circles to bring in a small amount of flour from the edges of the well. Add a little more milk and keep whisking in small circles. The aim here is to gradually add perhaps half of the milk and bring in the flour a little at a time to make a smooth, thick paste without any lumps.
Once you’ve pulled in all the flour, whisk until you can’t see any lumps, before adding the rest of the milk, whisking all the time. If you suspect that you haven’t been quite patient enough and have a few lumps you can pour your batter through a sieve to remove them, or make your peace with them, they won’t really affect the final taste of your pancakes.
You pancake batter should have the thickness of single cream, somedays, some batches of flour take a little extra milk. If you make your batter in advance there’s a good chance it will thicken up and you’ll need to add a little bit more milk. The first pancake is always a good test of your batter.
Heat your frying pan over a high heat, until you can just hold your hand over it. Add a knob of butter and swirl the pan, the butter should melt instantly and turn slightly golden if your pan is hot enough. Pour a ladle of batter in the hot frying pan and tip and swirl it around until it coats the bottom of the pan . The first pancake is always a bit of a test, if the batter is too thick and slow to move, whisk in a little more milk.
Run a spatula gently around the edge of the pancake to loosen it, then use it to gently lift the edge to see how quickly it’s cooking. You’re looking for it to be a golden brown. Shake the pan to make sure the whole bottom of the pancake has released and then slide the spatula underneath and quickly and confidently turn the pancake over. Don’t panic if it ends up a little wrinkled, you can usually ease out the folds with the spatula and a few shuffles of the pan.
The second side cooks faster, so keep an eye on it, lifting up the edge with your spatula to check its golden brown before sliding out on to a plate. I often make a big stack to let people help themselves from, or you can do them one at a time and serve them up one-by-one.
We love ours topped with raspberry or apricot jam, lemon and sugar, Nutella and banana or if I’m really lucky, with some Amarena cherries.
