Monday 16 April 2012

Buttermilk Pancakes with Spiced Apple Compote

I was on my own for Easter, so I started Easter Sunday with buttermilk pancakes! I was looking for something to do with the rest of the tub of buttermilk I used for the chicken and came up with these pancakes. I think that these are more typically American pancakes than the very thin ones I'm used to here, but they were delicious! I made so many that I had them three days running and I couldn't get enough! I had some cooking apples that needed using and thought that apple compote would go fantastically with the pancakes. So good!



Buttermilk Pancakes (from Good Food Magazine December 2011)
(Makes 15)

300g self-raising flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 medium eggs
284ml carton buttermilk
4 tbsp milk
85g melted butter

For the Spiced Apple Compote

75g butter
100g demerara sugar
4 Bramley apples, peeled and diced
¼tsp ground ginger
¼tsp ground cinnamon
¼tsp nutmeg

Place a saucepan onto a medium heat and add the butter and sugar.

Add the apples and spices and stir to combine.

Bring to a simmer and cook until the apples have softened but still retain some texture. This takes about 20-30 mins.

Mix the flour, bicarb and a pinch of salt in a bowl. Make a well in the centre, then gradually whisk in the eggs, followed by the buttermilk, milk and melted butter.

Melt a little more butter in a non-stick pan or wipe with sunflower oil. When hot, add 1-3 small ladles of batter to the pan to make 1-3 small pancakes (depending on the size of your pan). Cook for 2-3 mins until bubbles appear and the underneaths are set and golden. Flip and cook for a few mins more. Transfer pancakes to a plate, cover with baking parchment and keep warm in a low oven. Cook the remaining pancakes.

To serve, place pancakes on a plate and top with a dollop of apple compote and maple syrup.

4 comments:

  1. Yeah, those pancakes look American, but the compote must be British. Americans would use the maple syrup you used on the salmon. Not that the maple syrup with the salmon was a bad idea. It was delicious.. Actually most Americans would use the corn syrup with maple flavoring that passes itself off as maple syrup. My wife's family comes from Vermont, so I've tasted the real thing and would never go back.

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  2. I checked the pancake recipe I've used for decades, and the only difference to yours is that I've always mixed the dry ingredients together and the wet ingredients together separately. Then make a well in the dry ingredients as you describe, then pour the wet ingredients into the well and combine quickly. You don't need to mix thoroughly. I don't know why, but that's the recipe. We generally use a pancake griddle to cook the pancakes. That's a wide flat iron, now usually coated with a non-stick coating, which is either electrically heated or set on a stove top. The advantage is that you can cook many pancakes all at once to feed your clamoring family. Oh, and you always serve with bacon or breakfast sausage.

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  3. I thought they were! The compote is very British I think,it's what we've always done when we have loads of cooking apples that need eating! I think the maple syrup I have my Mum brought back from Canada and it is so good! I am definitely going to have to make more pancakes! I tried pancakes and bacon when I was in the States a couple of years ago and I still can't quite get my head around it!

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  4. The compote sounds delicious; I just wouldn't put it on pancakes. Too sweet for me in the morning. Every state and province that has sugar maples makes maple syrup. At one time it was the cheap alternative to cane sugar. Now it's sort of a cult foodie item. Vermont takes its maple syrup as seriously as France takes its wine. Grading systems and everything.

    There are lots of different pancakes in American cooking: sweet milk pancakes, buttermilk pancakes, cornmeal pancakes, etc. Making pancakes for my family was one of my happy chores when my son was young; he loved them in all their varieties. Always with bacon or sausage. That combination of sweet and salty must be an American thing if you' hadn't heard of it before you visited.

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