Pancake Day 2015

Cheese & Bacon Pancakes

I meant to do 2-3 different Pancake posts over the last week or so. Annoyingly I got stinkingly ill on Monday and it wrote off pretty much the whole week. Then I didn’t want to has all the pancaking making into a day and eat too many pancakes to myself in one go. So it took getting a couple of friends over for pancakes to happen. But below are two pretty awesome recipes. One sweet and one Savoury, both American style. I did a very poor job with my post last year, so to make up for it I wanted to go a bit further.


Cheese & Bacon Pancakes

Pancakes

Ingredients:
100g Mature Cheddar, Grated (extra for garnish)
2 Spring Onions, roughly chopped (one for the mixture, one for garnish)
8 Rashers Streaky Bacon, Fried until Crispy
135g/4¾oz plain flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp white sugar
130ml/4½fl oz milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tbsp melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking
Maple Syrup (optional)
Sriracha (Optional)
Cheese Sauce (Optional)

Instructions:
1. Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt and sugar).
2. Whisk together the milk, egg and melted butter. Pour in to the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Stir in the cheese and one of the spring onions.
3. Using a ladel dollop into a prepared hot pan. Frying until golden on one side and flipping over. Fry until both sides are golden and it’s cooked through.
4. Stack up on the plate, topping with the bacon, extra cheese and spring onion. Add any of the optional toppings (I just went with sriracha and allowed some bacon to get extra crispy to sprinkle on top).

Pancakes

Double Choc Pancakes

Pancakes

Ingredients:
135g/4¾oz plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
2 tbsp white sugar
2 tbsp Cocoa Powder
130ml/4½fl oz milk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2 tbsp melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking
100g White Choc Chips (reserve some for garnish)
100ml Double Cream, Whipped (optional)
Maple Syrup (optional)
Ice Cream (Optional)

Instructions:
1. Whisk together the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, cocoa powder and sugar).
2. Whisk together the milk, egg and melted butter. Pour in to the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth. Stir in the chocolate chips.
3. Using a ladel dollop into a prepared hot pan. Frying until golden on one side and flipping over. Fry until both sides are golden and it’s cooked through.
4. Stack up on a plate, topping with whatever you are using (I used whipped cream).

Pancakes

Blue Cheese & Bacon Grilled Cheese Sandwich

Blue Cheese Grilled Cheese

Fuck Man, cheese. It’s the one. Also blue cheese. Sometimes I get cravings for it. I may have covered that before when I put up my blue cheese scone recipe. But it’s something I could easily chat about for ages. I often find myself sat with friends just talking cheese and realise that a good 45 minutes has gone past. I also really like bacon. Bacon is good. Basically what I’m trying to say is that I’m really good with hangover/comfort food. The other day I made an awesome 3 cheese & chorizo mac’n’cheese (I’m going to put the recipe up for that soon) and I had some leftover blue. So what did I do? Grilled Cheese Sandwich. Stuffed with blue cheese, mozzarella, basil and bacon.

Grilled Cheese Sandwich

I used my frying pan for this, and it came out wonderfully. It’d work a number of other ways. Toastie machine, grill etc. Just make sure you both sides are golden and that the cheese has reached that wonderful gooey stage. There isn’t much more I can say about this other than: MAKE THE FUCK OUT OF THIS.

Blue Cheese & Bacon Grilled Cheese Sandwich
 
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Author:
Serves: 1 Sandwich
Ingredients
  • 2 Slices of bread, buttered on one side of each slice (I used white)
  • Blue cheese (I used Stilton)
  • 5-6 pieces of Mozzarella (Sliced off a ball)
  • 3-4 Basil leaves
  • 4 Bacon Rashers, fried (I used streaky)
Instructions
  1. Heat up a non stick frying pan.
  2. While it's heating up form the sandwich. The buttered sides need to face outwards. Layer blue cheese, mozzarella, basil and bacon. Making sure that there is a layer of cheese either side of the bacon/basil.
  3. Place on the warm pan, butter side down. Leave to fry for about 90 seconds, making sure it doesn't stick to the pan.
  4. Flip and fry for 30 seconds, then check that both sides are cooked. They should be golden brown.
  5. Press down while it's frying to help push the cheeses together.
  6. Slice down the middle and serve
 

American Style Pancakes

Pancake Day! Everyone’s favourite thing about lent, and when everyone momentarily acts half religious again. The other being Christmas, or when they want to get married in a church. Aaaaanyway, Andy (my housemate) has requested American style pancakes this year so that’s what he’s getting. Topped with Maple Syrup and crispy fried bacon. I still remember a few years ago when the idea of this completely disgusted me, but these days the sweet/savoury combo is just down right salivating. PASS ME THE BACON.

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Also, I’m doing this before actually making the pancakes… so I’m relying on an old picture of ones I made when some friends came round last year and I made Sunday morning hangover pancakes. I will get some proper snaps tonight, but the recipe is the same.

American Style Pancakes
 
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Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • For the pancakes:
  • 135g/4¾oz plain flour
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp salt
  • 2 tbsp caster sugar
  • 130ml/4½fl oz milk
  • 1 large egg, lightly beaten
  • 2 tbsp melted butter (allowed to cool slightly) or olive oil, plus extra for cooking
  • For the toppings:
  • Streaky bacon, fried until crispy
  • Maple Syrup
Instructions
  1. Sift the flour in to a large bowl along with the baking powder, salt and caster sugar. In a separate bowl whisk the milk with the egg. Mix in the melted butter.
  2. Pour the milk/egg mixture into the flour mix and beat with a fork until the lumps have all disappeared. Leave it to stand for a few minutes.
  3. Heat a non-stick frying pan and melt a knob of butter. Drop one ladle full (two if your pan is big enough for two separate pancakes) and fry until the top starts to bubble. Flip and cook both sides until they are golden brown and the pancake has risen by about 1cm.
  4. Serve warm topped with bacon and covered in maple syrup.