Pancake Day

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It doesn't really matter what you call it - Mardi Gras, Fasnacht, Carnival, Karneval….I'll probably never truly understand the whole point of it, but one thing that I love about all the craziness just before lent starts is the last day of it - pancake day. Whoever originally had that idea - using all the milk, eggs, sugar, and butter they wouldn't be using for the next 40 days, in my book that was the best idea ever!
In case you haven't noticed, I am rather fond of all things pancakes - thin ones, thick and fluffy ones, cut-up ones in soup, even the ones that are filled with jam and are bloody donuts (I'm not even trying to understand why they call them Pfannkuchen in Berlin, they're not even made in a proper pan…) oh, and does anyone amongst you Germans remember Petzi? Growing up one of my goals in life (right after becoming a bird-catcher dude just like Papageno) was to get my mum to make a stack of pancakes as high as the one Petzi's mum kept making at the end of each adventure. Unfortunately I wasn't really that good at the whole scheming thing so neither the bird-catcher thing nor the pancake stack worked out…
Anyhow, a while back Verena asked me for a gluten-free pancake recipe so I thought I should come up with one. Since she didn't tell me whether it was supposed to be a thick American-style pancake or a thin crêpe I decided to be lazy and go down the crêpe-route. If you've never had millet, this is a really nice introduction to it. We've used buckwheat in a few other recipes in the past (if you actually cook the stuff I write about rather than just looking at the pictures - yes, Katharina S, I am soo looking at you right now :) )

One note of caution, if you're looking for super thin pancakes that you can pretty much see through and that will roll up amazingly easily, I would probably make palatschinken (aka Austrian crêpe) because since this recipe is gluten-free and I didn't add anything fancy to the batter there there isn't any of the proteiny viscousness in the batter. That said, I do think flavour-wise, these are the best thin pancakes I have had in a while.

Millet and Buckwheat Pancakes
100g Millet Flour
50g Buckwheat Flour
200ml Milk
100g Creme Fraiche
2 Eggs
½ tbsp Sugar (optional)
A pinch of Salt
Zest of ½ Orange (optional)
1 tsp Vanilla Essence

Mix the flours, then whisk in the milk, eggs and creme fraiche. Add the sugar and orange zest if you are using them (in case you haven't noticed lately, I believe orange zest goes with everything). Then add the Salt and Vanilla Essence.
Heat a heavy-bottomed skillet to a medium heat and melt some butter in it.
Pour some batter into the skillet and rotate the skillet slightly so the batter gets evenly distributed. Wait until the pancake looks like it's cooked through and the edges start rolling up (I found that unlike a 'normal' crepe where it doesn't matter as much whether the edges are already rolling up, with these they kept tearing whenever I was too impatient), flip the pancake and give it another minute or two so the second side gets some colour as well.
I had these pancakes with some cinnamon sugar but my mum says they also go really well with some strawberry-rhubarb jam.
What is your favourite pancake topping/filling?

I hope you have a good week and lots and lots of pancakes :)

Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Ok, before we go any further, these are hands down the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever made.
I don't think I was made for cookie baking - I don't tend to want to have 3 dozen cookies sitting around in my kitchen (I won't eat them and, unlike what some people have been suspecting, I don't want to make everyone around me obese) and I seem to go for a hit-and-miss approach when I'm making cookies.
Unlike cake when I can just try a new recipe and will change quantities that sound slightly off, I can try two cookie recipes that appear both sensible and end up with an amazing one and another one that makes me want to throw them out the second they have cooled down.
But these cookies didn't just look the way I want cookies to look, they also tasted like I had died and gone to cookie heaven. So you might wonder what I did different this time - at least I hope you are because I'll tell you anyway.
I went back to basics and adapted Ree's chocolate chip cookie recipe (have you ever had a recipe on PW not work out? I haven't) and I started wondering why I hadn't done so years ago. I think this will turn into one of my standard recipes because it was super quick and the cookies are just plain amazing.
Anyhow, enough talking...let's make some cookies!

Chunky Chocolate Chip Cookies (makes 12)
100g Butter, at room temperature
100g Sugar
1 Egg
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
65g Plain Flour
35g Buckwheat Flour
1/2 tsp Instant Coffee
1/4 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda (slightly) heaped
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tbsp Flaxseed, ground
100g Chocolate (I used 75% cocoa), broken into pieces

Preheat your oven to 190˚C
Cream the butter and the sugar, then add the vanilla extract and egg and keep mixing until they are well combined. In a separate bowl, mix the flours, salt, instant coffee and bicarb. Add the dry mix to the wet mix in 3 parts, stirring after each addition, then add the flaxseed (do not over-beat but make sure the ingredients are well-combined). Finally add the chocolate chunks and stir until they are relatively evenly distributed across the batter.
Using a spoon put little lumps (about the size of 2tbsp measuring spoons) of batter onto a lined baking tray leaving enough space between the lumps so the cookies can spread out.
Bake the cookies for 11-13 minutes, allow them to cool slightly before transferring them onto a wire-rack and eating them either still warm or cold, but always with a big glass of milk.

Raspberry Brownies

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Over the last few years I have been complaining about not having anywhere to grow herbs to cook with - if I have to make the trek down to the garden I'm not gonna use them (I love fresh herbs but I guess the love is not quite THAT strong) and everything we try to grow on our kitchen table just seems to die within hours of you putting it there. So when I was staying in Berlin I got serious balcony-envy at Judith and Mimi's place. Apart from lots and lots of fresh herbs they were growing the most amazing strawberries on their balcony (I'm keeping my fingers crossed for the tomatoes!!!). One evening we were having dinner with their neighbour Daniel and the conversation moved to the raspberries he's growing and how they're all amazingly amazing. Thinking of raspberries (while having one of Judith's amazing peanut brownies) got me excited about how well raspberries would go with brownies. Here's the end product :)

Raspberry Brownies
200g Butter
200g Good dark chocolate, broken into pieces
150g Wholegrain spelt flour
100g Buckwheat flour
200 - 250g Caster sugar
A pinch of salt
1/2 Vanilla pod
4 Eggs
250g Raspberries

Preheat your oven to 180 degrees
Melt the butter and the chocolate in a small saucepan and let it cool slightly.
Put the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl, add the chocolate mixture and mix until it's well combined. At this point you could try what you've got to see whether it's sweet enough. I prefer them with 200 grams of sugar but if you've got a sweet tooth you might want to go for 250.
Mix in the eggs, make sure they're properly incorporated, and add the raspberries.
Find a brownie tin (mine has reappeared, oh the joy!), pour the batter in and bake the whole thing for about 18-20 minutes. Since the raspberries are so juicy I baked mine until they were rather well done (so while you don't get the normal gooeyness that way they're not a complete mess the next day).
Make your labmates love you by sharing them :)

Quince Buckwheat & Spelt Pancakes

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©Anna Blanch

I should really start writing about something other than brunch and cake....but aren't they some of the best things in life?
Anyhow, as promised, here's the pancakes we made a couple of weeks ago when Anna was staying with me for the weekend (I'm sorry I was such a boring host!)
We made them with apples this time but they work better with quince, so if you can find some awesome, otherwise, a rather tart apple should work as well, we had Braeburn and they didn't quite work...
I originally got the recipe from Kim Boyce's 'Good to the Grain' which, if you're into whole grain baking is like food porn :)
Pancakes....the original recipe uses pears and if you ever tried to feed me pears you will know that I'd rather write a chapter than eat pears....but I had these amazingly fragrant quince sitting in my kitchen that I only bought because I love the smell so much (though...quince curry.....hmmm....) and because they remind me of my grandparents garden when I  was little (I had a quince tree there).....and somehow the quince ended up in my pancakes.
The way I like to have those pancakes made my mum shake her head but try it, and you'll understand why this is my favourite breakfast in the world!

Quince Buckwheat & Spelt Pancakes
1 cup buckwheat flour
1 cup whole-grain spelt flour
3 tbsp sugar
2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
11/4 cups soy milk
1 egg
1 large quince (though I'm guessing if you have your own tree you'll need two...) peeled just before you're ready to start

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. I know this might seem tedious but it's really worth the effort! Your pancakes, or any baking for that matter becomes a lot lighter and you don't have to worry about lumps as much.
In a large bowl, whisk the butter, soy milk and egg together and grate the quince into the mixture (quince discolour quite a lot if you grate them in advance, so I'd really only grate them when you need them).
Fold the dry mixture into the wet mixture. Don't overbeat at this step otherwise your pancakes will go this weird rubbery texture....
Now you get to have fun!
Heat a pan over medium heat and rub it with butter (Kim Boyce points out that using lots of butter is what makes the edges go all crisp and buttery....which makes sense but until she pointed it out I never thought about it.....so go for the 'it's brunch....it doesn't count' attitude :) )
Go for about 2 tablespoons of batter for each pancake.
Once you get those awesome bubbles at the top of the pancakes, flip them and keep cooking until the bottom is a lovely golden colour.

©Anna Blanch

So back to them being my favourite breakfast in the world.....
A while ago I felt like experimenting so I added some poached eggs, some steamed apples, some grated cheese, and some agave syrup......you know how some dishes just feel like a party in your mouth? Well this is like a slowdance with an incredibly cute guy.....the egg yolks just melt in with the creaminess of the cheese which contrasts the tartness of the apples just to be balanced by the mellow sweetness of the syrup......


Steamed Apples
You'll need 1 apple per person. I prefer tart, crispy apples for this.
Peel the apples, core them and cut them into quarters, then you slice each of the quarters into pound coin thick slices.
Here's where my laziness takes over....stick them into a microwaveable dish, cover and microwave them until they're tender but not falling apart. If you're just making enough for yourself that'll take 2 minutes, if you're going for 3 or 4 apples it'll probably take more like 5 minutes....just keep checking.

You know how to grate cheese....but I've tried it with different types of cheese and you get the nicest effect with a not to mild slightly nutty cheese. Fine, a mature cheddar from your supermarket might work as well....but go and make your local cheesemonger happy!

©Anna Blanch