I have been so immersed in working out the details for my workshop that I feel like I am neglecting my blog. I dislike that because this is my place of comfort. My place where I land creatively.
I also read more and more about photographers in the field of food photography and hear them talk of them being creatives first. This holds so true for me too largely. But not completely. I am like a child that has discovered a new toy. And believe it or not food is my latest toy. I am not some young chicken that could perhaps get away with saying something like this. But here I am saying it. I am so excited about all the new foods I dare to try.
I used to be very proud to announce in my twenties that I ate to live, nothing else. My food was so healthy (because of my health problems) that I just ate it because I had to.
And then things changed. They changed because I changed and became better. Better able to handle spices and had someone in my life that egged me to try more stuff. To be slightly more adventurous. I resisted at first. Resisted with all my might. And make no mistake I still do. But oh my lord am I way better now than I was then. I’m a hard core vegetarian but even within the scope of vegetarians I refused to eat many fruits and vegetables. Boy was I a pain in the you know what!
So, pancakes are not my thing. Here we go! They are not my thing. BUT, I tried them when I made these and I liked them. This doesn’t mean I’m going to rush into making them every weekend or eat them everyday. But honestly these were so good. And they were of course received so well by the monkey in the house that loves pancakes. That 11 year old stamp of approval is all we need isn’t it?
If I haven’t convinced you already and you are grown up and still turning up your nose (like I used to!), then they have beer in them!
I knew I could turn you around… hehe..
- For the Pancake Batter
- 2¼ cups whole wheat flour or atta
- 1½ cup buttermilk/regular milk
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tsps baking powder
- 2 tsps baking soda
- 2 eggs
- 3 tbsps sugar
- ½ tsp cardamom powder
- 1¼ cup beer
- oil for cooking
- ½ cup caramel sauce (recipe below)
- For Decoration
- Handful of strawberries
- Handful of blueberries
- For the Caramel Sauce
- 150 ml heavy cream
- 200 grams granulated sugar
- 100 grams cold butter, in cubes
- ½ tsp sea salt flakes
- To prepare the pancake batter, in a bowl mix all the dry ingredients together. One by one add the eggs, buttermilk and beer and whisk to mix well to ensure there are no clumps.
- Heat a non-stick pan and add a drop of oil. Pour the batter with a ladle and cook pancakes until the edges begin to brown and the top of the batter bubbles, then flip and cook for another 1-2 minutes. Repeat for all pancake batter.
- To prepare the caramel sauce, gently warm the cream in a small saucepan. Set aside.
- Put the sugar in another saucepan and heat on medium high until the sugar starts melting around the edges. Carefully swirl the sugar with a heatproof spoon until all the sugar has melted.
- Add the butter, piece by piece, and stir until melted. Carefully add the warm cream (it will bubble up so be careful!) little by little and stir until smooth.
- Pour caramel into a jar and let cool 10 minutes before adding salt. Cool completely.
- Stack all the pancakes on top of each other.
- Decorate by putting the fruit on top of the stack and liberally drizzling the caramel sauce on top.
Teresa Blackburn says
Deliciously beautiful.
Kelsie | the itsy-bitsy kitchen says
OH MY! These look fantastic. Cardamom is my FAVORITE spice! And I love pancakes. Your gorgeous photos are making me so hungry :).