Monday, July 11, 2011

strawberry pancakes for canada day

July 1st is a holiday in these parts - to celebrate Canada Day. On a whim, I made a batch of pancakes from our family recipe, something we used to have about once a month as children and something my father was in charge of cooking. The recipe comes from a book - The Canadian Cookbook - and the family copy of the book has many calculations along side the recipe, multiplications or divisions of the original recipe to adjust the number of servings. When my brother took over the pancake duties from our Dad, he would add "surprises" - usually raisins to the batter. Now, he and his family regularly have pancakes and my English nephews love maple syrup. When we visit we pack our suitcases full of bottles of Canadian maple syrup for their pancakes. It's always eagerly anticipated and usually means pancakes soon after our arrival. My brother does say that English flour does not produce fluffy pancakes. Apparently for fluffy pancakes, Canadian flour is required.


Pancakes (from The Canadian Cookbook)

1 1/2 cups of flour
1 tsp salt
3 tbsp sugar
1 3/4 tsp baking powder
2 beaten eggs
3 tbsp melted butter
1-1 1/4 cups of milk

Mix and sift dry ingredients. Beat egg, add milk and butter. Combine to make a batter. Cook the pancakes.

I added sliced strawberries to the batter, once the pancakes were in the pan, cooking - as I had a flat of strawberries sitting on the counter. The inspiration came from here. And then it struck me that I had made strawberry pancakes for Canada Day. They are delicious served with warm maple syrup.

3 comments:

Clare said...

Yum! Do you know, I sourced some Canadian flour for said brother and the pancakes still weren't as fluffy as he claims they used to be. So that reason is out of the window ;)

The tradition has now passed to your eldest nephew, who makes them regularly when his friends stay over. In fact the last time he made them was at 4am. Not too popular with the parents.

Charlotte said...

I admire your resourcefulness to achieve fluffy pancakes. I always thought K's pancakes in England were just as yummy as they were at home but thought maybe my memory wasn't working....Glad to hear the pancake mantle has been passed on.

Clare said...

Yes, I agree, his pancakes are delicious, and I don't think they're different to ones I've had in Canada. So maybe it's K's memory that isn't working?! The strawberry ones look amazing.