The cooking apples havent been great this season. It seems most fruits haven't been faring too well with the wet cool summer. I managed to find three small decent cooking apples a few weeks ago, and I turned them into stewed apple deliciousness. Add some rashers and pancakes and I had a particularly delicious breakfast.
Stewed apples/applesauce
- 3 Bramley cooking apples
- 25g Maple syrup (or you can use some cinnamon sugar and 1 tbsp water
Peel the apples, and chop the flesh off in chunks. Put in a pot with the maple syrup. Heat gently for ten mins until the apples have melted. Stir and enjoy hot or cold.
This is good with custard, biscuits, in cake or on top of pancakes.
Pancakes (crepe style)
I've been using this recipe since I first made pancakes, and it comes from my mother's cooking encyclopaedia. It's pretty much the only recipe I always measure in Imperial, as that's how it was written in the (very old) book.
- 8oz (225g) flour
- 1 pt (560mL) milk
- 2 eggs
-
Beat together the flour, eggs and about 100mL of the milk. Beat in the rest of the milk bit by bit so you dont get lumps. If you have a food processor just pour the milk in while whizzing. I use my stick blender, so it's faster than doing it by hand (i've done it by hand in the past) and you only have to wash the blender and the bowl/jug.
Let the batter rest until you're ready to cook it. This is usually when I grill some rashers.
Heat the pan very hot, otherwise your first pancake will be a flop and later ones won't be as good either. Rub the pan with some butter or neutral oil (butter will smoke if you leave it over the heat for a long time, so I butter/pour quickly).
Pour on enough batter to cover a third of the pan and then tip the pan to spread it about. You'll see the surface of the pancake start to turn darker in colour as it dries out, and some bubbles will form. When the top surface looks dry, give the pan a shake to dislodge the pancake, then flip (this is tough to describe in words, it's like a push/flick to get the pancake airborne against the edge of the pan, then a shove forward to catch the falling cake). Cook the other side for a little less time than the first side (I flip to see if it's browned enough, saves on spatulas), serve pretty quick.
I usually end up making pancakes for everyone else before me, sneaking a few in while I'm cooking. Then I keep the last two pancakes for making something extra nice with, in this instance, topped with applesauce, rashers and maple syrup. It was extremely tasty.
