As one of my favourite sweet recipes, pancakes1 are simple and versatile, unsweetened versions can even be made savoury, but they're good any time of the day, year around.
I'm using 'pancakes' as an umbrella term for a few different types of pan-fried batter recipes below, though mostly due to the direct translation of 'pannekoek' being 'pancakes'.
When it comes to actually making them: My tip would be to apply a thin layer of oil to a very hot pan and sacrifice the first (or even second too) pancake to evenly distribute it. If you have a thin batter you can tilt the pan to spread the batter as soon as it goes in the pan; if the batter is thicker then you may need to use the spatula to spread it quickly enough. You want to flip the pancakes as soon as it is possible to do so without breaking apart.
Classic Crepes
The most basic recipe, it's a good base to make adjustments from and is the easiest to make. They're nice because you can always make them, you never don't have the ingredients.
Turning this recipe into American-Style Breakfast Pancakes is simple with the easy adjustment of using self-raising flour and 1 tsp of baking powder.
If you find these too plain, you could add a pinch of salt.
Ingredients
- 1 egg
- 1 cup flour
- 1 cup milk
Method
- Mix.
E's Pannekoek
This is the one I ate growing up. It's still my favourite overall but it's a big batch so better reserved for company. Also you'll spend a lot of time at the stove making these, they're the most unforgiving of the three recipes.
For fillings there are two classics with their optional additions:
-
Cinnamon & Sugar
and a few drops of lemon juice.
-
Caramel Condensed Milk2 (Dulce de Leche)
and some bananas sliced and halved.
It's easy (albeit tedious) to make this by removing the label and placing a can of sweetened condensed milk into a deep pot of water and boiling it on high for 3 hours, make sure to replace the water as it boils off.
Ingredients
- 4 eggs
- 2 tbsp white vinegar
- 1/2 cup vegetable oil
- 7 cup water
- 4 cups plain white flour
- 4 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
Method
- Mix wet and dry separately, then together.
A's Crêpes
Recently given to me, these are in the French style; so they have a decent amount of sugar in the recipe, though that doesn't stop the most popular topping being even more sugar (crêpe au sucre) with some melted butter. Other common toppings include various jams or your favourite hazelnut chocolate spread. They're more stretchy than the previous two recipes but you spread them thinner so not any easier to make.
Ingredients
- 250g flour T45 (Type 00 Italian, Euro 450 and American Cake flour are all the same)
- 130g vergeoise or brown sugar
- 1g powdered vanilla
- 4 large eggs
- 130g butter
- 1/2L whole milk
Method
- Mix flour, sugar, and vanilla.
- Add eggs; beat thoroughly.
- Gradually stir in milk.
- Dice butter, melt over low heat until it stops crackling and foams. Don’t burn.
- Let butter cool slightly, fold into the mixture.
And that's it! I hope you enjoy at least once of these recipes. And yes, I did recreate my entire website from scratch just to post this because I love pancakes.