Double Chocolate Pancakes

Happy Shrove Tuesday everyone! It is a small miracle that today I actually remembered that it was the Tuesday of all things pancakes. It has been a few years since I made pancakes on the right day. I’m sure this happens to lots of people but usually I’m either a week early or a week late. I remember years ago that the days leading up to pancake Tuesday, the shops started promoting ingredients to make pancakes, nowadays shops start to up sell ingredients weeks in advance and for weeks afterwards and I panic and think it’s pancake Tuesday and race home to make pancakes and the next day I realise that I was too early or too late. Ha ha, this year I actually got it right! I’m so happy (I know, I get excited too easily). But when I got home this evening, I did a little dance when I knew that I had the right day. I have to be honest, I don’t give anything up for lent or anything like that, but I do celebrate today as it is the one day of the year that you can get away with making double chocolate pancakes for dinner and no one judges you.

Having said that, I made and we ate the pancakes and now I’m feeling a little queezy. Too much chocolate! Even with the addition of strawberries (very important to keep your fruit intake up you know), but I piled the pancakes onto my plate and of course made a total mess. They fell over and I got chocolate all over myself, Doh! However, I am still doing a little dance inside with knowing that I got away with chocolate for dinner. The puppy is however not very happy as there were no raw vegetables to steal or trimmings in her bowl at the end of the meal. She looks a little confused and in truth so does my partner D. I’m not sure he was overly happy with a stack of pancakes drenched in sauce for dinner. Oh well…

Now I could lie to you and tell you that they are good for you, but we all know they are not. I could have made healthy apple pancakes or a more dinner like pancake including the likes of courgette or carrot but I didn’t. I just wanted good old chocolate pancakes for my first ever pancake Tuesday as a blogger. So with no further delay, here they are, Double chocolate pancakes….

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE PANCAKES

(with strawberries)

• 60 g granulated sugar
• 30 g cocoa powder
• 50 g light brown sugar
• 195 g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate of soda)
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 80 ml whole milk
• 80 ml buttermilk
• 2 large eggs
• 3.5 tbsp vegetable oil
• 1.5 tsp vanilla extract
• butter for frying

for the sauce:

• 100 g chocolate (I used 48% dark)
• 150 ml double cream

THE HOW

Mix with a whisk the granulated sugar and cocoa powder. Stir in the light brown sugar, flour, soda and salt. Make a well in the center and set aside.

In a seperate bowl mix the milk, buttermilk, eggs, oil and vanilla until well blended. Add this to the dry mix and blend.

Heat a non stick pan and add a knob of butter. Drop in a few batches of batter (I used 1/4 cup measure for each pancake) and let spread a little in the pan. When they start to form little bubbles on the top you can flip them over (usually 1 minute) and cook for another minute. Transfer to a plate and continue to fry more batches of pancake batter until all gone. This recipe usually makes 20 smallish pancakes.

For the sauce, chop or grate the chocolate or you can use chocolate chips. Heat the cream in a small saucepan and pour over the chocolate. Mix until the chocolate has melted and you have a nice glossy sauce.

Stack the pancakes, drizzle over the sauce and add fruit and sprinkle with icing sugar. Yum!