Partly Cloudy: May 2010

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Pancakes and Marzipan Animals!

Pancakes... aka hotcakes.

(Image from desktopcookbook.com)
They have come up on blogs from totally different hosts twice this week. I really like making pikelet style pancakes. I call them hotcakes or pancakes, but really they are giant pikelets. I don't know if anyone knows what pikelets are but they are a Kiwi/New Zealand thing. Ladies make them and scones and we eat them with butter, jam or honey and sometimes cream. You could eat them with anything you like really, even cheese? You can eat them plain if you make them sweet (which I do because jam is bad for my teeth). They are basically mini-pancakes but thicker batter, almost like waffle batter. They are just mini-hotcakes I guess.
I wondered what makes pikelets and pancakes different.
My friend seems to use a similar recipe to me but she makes it thinner, the batter, that is. But wouldn't that make crepes? I'm not sure but I think she also puts golden syrup in the actual batter. She uses a lot of butter to fry them in. I use a non-stick frypan and no oil or butter. They are soft, firm yet puffy, mildly sweet and golden-brown! I like them non-oily. I think that's why I don't usually like pancakes when other people make them.
I will post my pancake recipe that I made up, and then you can make them too.

I use (roughly because I don't measure properly all the time)
Aprox: 2 cups self raising flour (I hate trying to get plain flour to rise satisfactorily with baking powder)
One cup of white sugar
1 egg (I don't like any eggy taste so minimise my use of eggs)
1 cup of milk, then add as I want to adjust the thickness of the batter
To mix things up a little, you can add ginger or cinnamon (or both) to your batter, 1 table spoon will add flavour.
You could even put in chocolate chips or fruit, like blueberries.
I myself prefer to keep them plain and you can add other stuff on top later.
It really is cheap and easy to make these. I guess they are my comfort food.
If you have a non-stick pan or wok, use it to spoon/pour a small amount of the batter onto it and watch it carefully. When bubbles show in the batter, you can turn it over. It should turn over easily. I use a flat plastic slotted spatula to turn it.
Don't use metal things on a non-stick pan, it scratches it.
This all may seem very obvious to some people but other people often seem to do some of the stuff I have mentioned. People aren't stupid, but I think that most people do not stop to consider these days, so they act rashly and then regret it later.
So there we go. I hope someone can have fun making these pikelet thingies. It really is cheap and nice to eat. They look tidy and brown too. If you watch them and are careful, they can look good and not burn.

Also (Subject change!BRINGGG!)I saw this entry on a nice American lady's blog, about Mother's Day. I like to blog trawl lately. This one has nice photos of cake and marzipan animals. In New Zealand our bakeries generally aren't as good as the ones I see photos of. But they are cheap (usually) and you can find good quality food sometimes if you search around. Like the one near my house that has really nice Samosas. I love vegetarian Samosas...Ah...