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Ultimate Pancakes

I will never understand when people say ” I only eat to survive” or “if there was a pill i could take that would replace food, I would take it”. It’s pure insanity. How can you not enjoy food?! I spend at least 80% of my waking hours thinking about food/talking about food or eating food. Before I go to bed I am either getting excited about the food I plan to eat/cook the following day or I am dreaming up some fantastic new recipe.

 It was so nice and sunny out today! I had to close the blinds after these two pictures though because it just wasn’t working for me 🙁
Recently I have found myself thinking about pancakes a lot. Might have something to do with the fact it was shrove Tuesday this week. It might also be to due to my discovery of lotus biscuit spread!! Upon trying the spread I knew it would taste great with bananas! I just needed a vessel in which to carry these two ingredients in. Toast/ a sandwich is too obvious. Cake/muffins, too boring. Then it hit me. Pancakes! I do like a banana pancake and I have experimented with putting peanut butter in pancake batter, so banana and biscuit spread should work a treat.
And a treat it did work.
I realise it is quite a bold claim to make that these are the “ultimate” pancakes. I managed to eat 5 of these bad boys so they can’t have been all that bad! Hey come on now, 5 isn’t that bad. I had to go to the library on a Sunday and it was the hottest day of the year so far so I needed a treat!
The sun never hits UCL science library. It is in eternal darkness. Especially the lower floors. I find myself sitting in the “Geology” section as some light manages to sneak through the windows here. Honestly I am not exaggerating, well maybe a little, but the front of the library never gets any light, and it really is a depressing building. My ideal library would have huge windows and study rooms with plenty of open space and fresh air. Now the biggest windows would have to be skylights otherwise people would get easily distracted looking outside. Maybe the whole ceiling would be glass oooooh.
So these pancakes. I recently purchased Nigella Lawson’s “How to be a Domestic Goddess”. Fear not, it is not a guide on how to be a house wife, it is a book packed full of the most fantastic recipes. Having never used a recipe of Nigella’s before (she has replied to two of my tweets via direct message, I think we are on first name terms now) I was excited to get cracking. I want to make everything but due to my limited time (darn dissertation) I can’t make everything just yet. I came across the pancake recipe and thought that would be a great place to start. This will definitely be my go to recipe now for American Pancakes. Thanks Nigella!

Recipe

As I mentioned before, I used Nigella Lawson’s Pancake recipe from her book How to be a Domestic Goddess, making a few alterations.
Serves: Makes 6 pancakes (for one greedy person or two normal people)
Prep Time: 10 mins (max)
Cooking Time: 10 mins
Skill Level: Even a hungover version of yourself could do it.
Equipment
Mixing bowl
Frying pan
Ingredients
15g butter + extra for greasing pan
2-3 heaped tbsp lotus biscuit spread (2 tbsp gives you a nice subtle biscuity taste, 3 will be sweeter & more rich)
120g plain flour
½ tbsp baking powder
pinch of salt
½ tsp sugar 
1 egg (beaten)
150ml milk (I used soya and it worked fine!)*
1 banana (sliced)
 
Optional toppings:
Maple syrup
Peanut Butter + Nutella (melted together)

Method

  1. Melt together butter and biscuit spread. Put aside to cool.
  2. In mixing bowl, mix together flour, baking powder, salt and sugar. 
  3. Make a well in the centre of the mix.
  4. Add egg, milk and butter mix.
  5. Mix together until combined. (Don’t worry about lumps. We don’t mind lumps).
  6. Heat frying pan on medium heat and add butter.
  7. Lower heat and ladle/pour batter into frying pan. *
  8. When pancake begins to bubble on side facing up, flip over and cook for a further 1 min or so.
  9. Repeat for remaining batter.
  10. Top pancakes with sliced bananas or any other toppings of your choice ( I went for pb & nutella melted together, it was great)
*You may find your mixture is a little thick when it comes to pouring/ladling it on to the pan, therefore I suggest adding a splash more milk to make it a little runnier.
EGGS MILK AND FLOUR, PANCAKE POWER!
I cooked to Bob & Earl’s Harlem Shuffle


KB x

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