So, we made this after we had the first failure with cooking that we’ve had for a very long time*, as we contemplated what to have for Christmas Breakfast, Kathryn suggested pancakes – which I made, and Orange Sauce, which she made. Excuse the mixed measures, but we run a kind of anglo-american kitchen and use cups/weights/litres/fl oz interchangeably, depending on what’s handy.
For the pancakes:
75g Plain white flour
75g Wholemeal flour
1/4 cup chopped pecans / pecans and hazelnuts
1/3 cup dried cranberries
1 tsp. Baking powder
2 tbsp. Caster Sugar
Pinch salt (we tend to use virtually no salt in our cooking, you may want more)
~ Two tablespoons melted butter (allowed to cool a bit)
~140ml milk
One egg, beaten.
Extra butter to cook in (or veg oil if you want to be a teeny bit healthier)
Mix the dry ingredients *EXCEPT* blueberries in a large bowl. Keep aside the blueberries for later.
Mix the egg, milk and butter together, add to the dry ingredients and whisk until a smooth batter with roughly the consistency of whipping cream (heavy cream) is obtained. Add milk if the mixture is too thick.
Heat a small amount of butter in a frying pan on a low-moderate heat . Pour ~1/4 cup pancake batter into the pan; as soon as the batter is in the pan drop 3 or 4 blueberries into the batter in the pancake mix in the frying pan. Flip over when small holes appear in the top surface of the batter and fry briefly on the other side.
We keep our pancakes warm in a low oven – and using a large frying pan we can fry 3 or 4 simultaneously :)
For the Sauce:
1/2 Pint Freshly Squeezed Orange Juice
5-6 Tbsp. Caster Sugar
A ‘splash’ of Brandy
1/2tsp. Cornflour.
Mix the Orange Juice, Caster Sugar and Brandy together and heat over a high heat until boiling gently and stirring regularly. Maintain a low boil to reduce it down. When down to ~1 cup add the cornflour and stir until dissolved a smooth syrup is obtained.
Pour over buttered pancakes and serve hot.
* I say we, mostly me. We were trying to make the hairy bikers hollandaise sauce. I don’t know quite what went wrong – I’m guessing that despite our best efforts it was too hot – and the metal bowl we were using transferred heat better than the bain-marie you’re meant to use. Anyway, what we made was basically butter with ultrafine scrambled eggs in butter. Twice.
