Wednesday 20 April 2011

Pancakes!

Picture the scene; it's nearly midnight, I'm having a cooking show marathon whilst tucked up in bed, when I suddenly get the most intense craving for pancakes. And not the thick American-style ones I've grown accustomed to (as that's the only kind I've found decent vegan recipes for). Rather, I'm craving the beautiful, fluffy, thin, British ones like my mum used to make (and like I used to, before the dairy and egg embargo). Back in my lacto-ovo days, I was known in my household as the queen of pancakes. I got to wondering why exactly I should retire just because I no longer ate two of the key ingredients of my infamous recipe. Surely, if I was truly a pancake deity of some sort, then I would be able to create a vegan-friendly recipe that was easy to make and tasted fantastic. Or at least find one online.

A quick search, however, only seemed to deliver results that included mashed bananas and egg replacer and other ingredients I did not have in my cupboards. I realised two things; that I needed to go shopping, and that if I really wanted those pancakes I'd have to make the recipe up. So I did the latter first, using only the ingredients I had lying around, and put off the former until tomorrow. And what I ended up with was a recipe that turned out the perfect British pancakes. Makes around 6-8.

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tsp rapeseed (canola) oil
2 tbsp sugar
Soymilk
Water

Mix together flour, baking powder and sugar, preferably in a jug.
Add canola oil to the dry ingredients and stir in.
Begin adding soy milk, starting with about 1/2 a cup and increasing the amount as you mix it in. Stop just before it's a good pancake consistency; when it's roughly the consistency of a thin yoghurt.
Add a splash of cold tap water and mix in.
Heat a frying pan (mine's about 6" in diameter) on the hob until it's warm, add a little vegetable fat if it's not non-stick and wait until that's melted.
Pour in pancake batter (this is where the jug is useful) and spread around the pan. Flip it over when the top is no longer liquid; it should be a nice golden-brown on the bottom. If it's not, you can always flip it back over.
Best served with sugar and lemon.

Notes:
-The measurements for the ingredients are approximate; I threw everything together without measuring properly.
-Don't let the pan get too hot. The pancakes end up with weird, thin, curly sides if it does. They taste just fine, it just looks a little odd and makes it harder to flip 'em. This is not a vegan-pancake-exclusive problem.
-Damn, I love pancakes.

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