Shrove Tuesday

[Raistlin]

What is your favourite recipe...






Toasted coconut pancakes with rum bananas


Toast 7tbsp dessicated coconut in a dry frying pan until pale gold and nutty smelling. Tip on to a plate to cool. Mix 6tbsp into the batter.

Cut four bananas in half lengthways and lay in an ovenproof dish. Slosh over a good 4tbsp rum (coconut rum like Malibu if you have it) and sprinkle generously with a handful of brown sugar. Dot with butter, cover with foil and bake at 180C/Gas4 for twenty five minutes until tender.

Cook the pancakes as usual. Lay a half banana on each and roll up. Drizzle over the syrup from the pan, and sprinkle with the remaining coconut. Serve with ice cream.

Marmalade crepes suzettes

Finely grate the zest of an orange and mix it with the batter – save the juice for the sauce.

Make the pancakes as usual. Keep them to one side. Heat 4 generous tbsp. of sweet orange marmalade in the pan with a glug of Grand Marnier (or brandy) and the juice of the orange, plus a good squeeze of lemon juice or Seville orange juice. Bring to a rolling boil, stirring to make a sauce.

Fold the pancakes in four and heat them through in the sauce. Flambe them if you like, by bringing 4tbsp Grand Marnier or brandy to the boil in a small pan. Light with a long match and pour over the pancakes. Serve with ice cream or Chantilly cream.

Cardamom crepes with Apple, rhubarb and muscovado yoghurt

Sprinkle a bowl of greek yoghurt thickly with muscovado sugar – say 3-4tbsp for half a large tub of yoghurt – and leave to one side. Add half a tsp ground cardamom to the batter and make as usual. Fill with a compote of apples and rhubarb. Serve with the muscovado yoghurt – the sugar will have dissolved to a deep brown syrup.

Vanilla pancake brulees

Mix a teaspoonful of vanilla extract into the pancake batter, then make them as usual.

Mix 1tbsp of cornflour. with 2tbsp milk. Tip a 500g carton of the best ready made custard you can run to into a saucepan and stir in the cornflour mix. Heat gently, stirring constantly until the custard thickens, then leave to cool. Taste and add 1tbsp brandy plus more vanilla if you think it needs it.

Spoon a good 3tbsp of the custard in the middle of a pancake. Fold the sides of the pancake to the middle, to make a neat enclosed parcel. Repeat with the rest of the pancakes, placing them in a single layer in a baking dish, edges neatly underneath. Don’t worry about a little seepage.

Heat the grill to its highest setting. Using a sieve, dredge with icing sugar, about beer mat thick. Pop under the grill and cook until brown and bubbling. Serve straight away with cream or ice cream if you like.

Pancakes with halva and rosewater cream

Make the pancakes as usual, adding a tablespoonful of toasted sesame seeds to the batter if you like.

For the filling, mix a cupful of Greek yoghurt with an equal quantity of whipped double cream. Sweeten with honey and flavour with rosewater (the intensity varies so add it a few drops at a time tasting as you go). Crumble in a small block of halva. Dollop on to the pancakes, folding them or rolling – make sure they are warm, not hot, or they will melt the cream. Decorate with dried rose petals if you like.

Basic pancakes recipe

Makes about 8

4oz/110g plain flour

1 large egg (or, for a really silky pancake, one egg and one egg yolk)

12floz/330ml milk, or half milk half water

2tbsp melted butter

Put the flour in a large bowl and make a well in the middle. Break in the egg and add about a quarter of the milk, plus a pinch of salt and the extra egg yolk if you’re using it.

Whisk the egg and milk together, drawing in the flour gradually, until it is all incorporated as a smooth paste. Add the rest of the milk/water and the melted butter, and whisk until smooth. If there are lumps, a quick blast in with a hand blender or in a liquidiser will sort them out.

If you have time, leave to rest for an hour or overnight in the fridge: this really does make for a lighter pancake. But it’s not compulsory.

[FROSTYBALLS]

The above look flippin great

[Raistlin]

You're not being a tosser are you ...

Pancakes of course...

[FROSTYBALLS]

Think they look batter than most

[FROSTYBALLS]

Have we eggs-hausted this now?

[Red Yaris 54]

Flipping heck......This could go on for some time......Time I Lent a hand :)

[FROSTYBALLS]

Out of the frying pan ....

[Red Yaris 54]

..........Onto the ceiling ;) :)

[Mike169]

They all look eggcellent i am hungry already, dinner at yours then! Lol

Mike.