Pioneer pancakes #2

So, to the results of the American pancake experiment. Ms Walker gives two variants on pancakes. The first is fairly similar to a standard pancake recipe, so I thought I'd try the second, which is for buckwheat pancakes of the type Almanzo dished up for Pa with ham.

Many years ago, I spent a joyous weekend in Rennes filling my face with those delicious buckwheat crepes that Brittany is famed for, and I'm very partial to a blini, which is probably the closest to this pioneer pancake that I've tasted, as they're also made with a leavening agent and often with buckwheat flour. These rustic American pancakes are closer to their East European cousin the blini than to our regular weekend blueberry pancake. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

So, to start with, we need (apologies for the US/Imperial measurements. I'm going with these, as I have measuring cups, and <whispers> cups are much easier than faffing about with the scales):

2tbs molasses

1oz yeast

2 cups buckwheat flour

1 cup wholewheat flour

½ tsp baking soda (= bicarbonate of soda)

½ tsp salt

1tbs dripping

¼ lb chunk salt pork

½ cup brown sugar

I'm an inveterate fiddler with recipes, so I adapted this slightly. Firstly I used quick yeast; the equivalent charts reckon that 1oz fresh yeast is approx 3.5tsp. I'm not going to start hunting down salt pork - it's only used in the recipe to grease the pan, so I figure I can live without it. I used bacon fat instead, as I fried up some bacon to go with the pancakes.

The recipe starts with an overnight sponge.  So, start by mixing the molasses with ½ cup of lukewarm water and then sprinkling the yeast on top. After leaving that for a few mins, add another 2 cups of water and both flours. Then cover with a cloth/clingfilm and leave overnight.  If you have a particularly warm kitchen (over about 20˚C at night), refrigerate the mixture. This is not a problem I ever have, sad to say. Here's my sponge:

I'm about to create another yeast-based explosion...

I returned an hour later to find it like this:

I was expecting to come into the kitchen the next morning and find it making its way across the kitchen floor. But in fact it had dropped back a bit and was looking lively but a bit more subdued. Thank goodness.

Next day, remove 1 cup of the sponge (you can keep this refrigerated and use as a starter for another batch if you like). Dissolve the bicarb and salt in ½ cup hot water and add the dripping/lard, then beat this into the sponge until well mixed.

Heat your griddle or pan (Ms Walker puts it so nicely: 'until it makes water drops dance') and then grease the pan (with the salt pork if you have tracked this down). Then cook as for a normal pancake. Traditionally, the first pancake is a 'blanket' pancake, that can be used to cover the pile as they are prepared, and is bigger than the rest. As the pancakes are stacked, sprinkle some brown sugar on each. The recipe says that this quantity makes about 24 3-4" wide pancakes. Even at their most ravenous, my family wouldn't eat that many, but I made larger pancakes and found that the quantities weren't outrageous. My mum was here too, but she's not exactly Desperate Dan when it comes to quantities.

The finished pancakes are darker than regular pancakes, and heartier, but got a resounding thumbs-up all round. Smallest Of All even discovered that he loves bacon (especially when it's slathered in maple syrup, I dare say, but anyway, it's some sort of result to get them eating anything new, to be honest). No eggs or milk, so definitely a more rustic kind of affair, but if my poncy lot will eat them with any degree of enthusiasm, then I'm sure they must be quite good.

Just the thing if you're heading out west. Which we were, as it happens, but not quite as far as Dakota. Happy trails!

Next time, Moomin-style pancakes, with pine needle sauce (I jest).

Pioneer pancakes and blackbird pie

Just back from a week of R&R. We were out of phone and internet range (I know - quaint, huh?) and a bit distracted by the views so no blogging for a few days. It was good to walk off a few of the heartier breakfasts:

Now, to pancakes. Once you start with pancakes, it's difficult to know where to stop. I guess because they're so quick and economical to cook, they feature in the cuisine of more or less every country in one form or other.  However, when I think of breakfast pancakes, I think of thick American pancakes, which are a regular weekend breakfast for us. We usually use Nigella's recipe from Domestic Goddess as our default, and plop in a handful of frozen blueberries while the batter is still wet in the pan. Once the pancake is cooked, the blueberries are done. We usually serve with a wee bit of maple syrup and cream. It is the weekend, after all.

We've been reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books with the children  recently.  If, like me, you were reared on the slightly saccharine 70s TV version, I encourage you to read the books - their life was a lot more rugged than the TV version. In fact, they're currently stuck in the middle of a particularly hard winter in Dakota territory, where all the food has run out and poor old Ma Ingalls is reduced to hand-grinding wheat to make bread (in a tiny coffee grinder). Wait though. You think that's bad? This is shortly before the bit when Pa's hair gets eaten by mice. While he's still wearing it. Like I said, rugged. It kind of puts Sainsbury's supply issues into perspective. Anyway, I digress. The Ingalls family were keen on pancakes. In the big woods of Wisconsin, the family tap their own maple syrup and eat pancakes with this. Sometimes, Ma makes them into little pancake men. She does it freehand; do not make the mistake, as I did, of trying it with a gingerbread man cutter in the pan. You're liable to end up with a one-armed civil war veteran of a pancake. Later on in Dakota, Laura's future husband, Almanzo Wilder, rustles up a big pile of buckwheat pancakes for Pa Ingalls with molasses and ham from his family's farm. The rest of the town are starving at the time, and I note that Pa doesn't seem to mention to his family when he gets home that he's just had a slap-up feed chez Wilder.

When we started reading the books, we were a bit confused by some of the dishes mentioned, many of which are unfamiliar to my 21st century British ears, so I picked up a copy of Barbara M Walker's Little House Cookbook, which is great fun. It describes all the dishes in detail, and gives recipes for many of them. Including, should you feel the urge, a recipe for blackbird pie. As it's apparently illegal to kill blackbirds in the US, she suggests using starlings, with the rather chilling caveat, 'Starlings cannot be bought; they must be hunted'. The local starlings are safe, since I don't have the wherewithal to go a-huntin', but I thought I'd try and make some proper pioneer-style pancakes. If they're horrid, it'll at least teach my children to appreciate what they have, which Ma Ingalls would consider a fine lesson.

I'll post the results of the pancake extravaganza in a couple of days, once the hard drive with all my photos on it has returned from a wee trip to London...