Pancakes two ways

Pancake day is upon us this week, a fabulous excuse to cook up my favourite breakfast treat. Not that we need an excuse to be honest, we’ll often have them at weekends or birthday breakfasts.

I wanted to give you lovely lot a couple of recipes – a traditional one for those that need it, plus a bonus blueberry one in case you fancy trying something a little different.

I also wanted to use this opportunity to get you to check the provenance of the eggs you’ll be buying for your batter mixes. We’re rather fond of animals in the Feeding Boys household so always use free range eggs.

You might be unnerved to hear that some eggs on the supermarket shelves still come from hens that are kept in cages.

While ‘conventional’ battery cages have been banned in the EU, unfortunately something called ‘enriched’ battery cages are still allowed.

These provides the hens with space equivalent to an A4 sheet of paper to nest, scratch and perch in. Sounds hideously cramped to me.

And it’s not just boxes of eggs you need to be wary of, it’s the labels of products like ready-made batter mixes you should be checking for eggs that are cage-free.

The RSPCA would like us to look for eggs labelled Freedom Food, free range, organic or barn. The following supermarkets all stock own-brand products that only contain free range eggs:

• Marks & Spencer – all products
• Waitrose all – own-brand products
• Sainsbury’s – all own-brand products
• Co-op – all own-brand products
• Morrisons – ‘The Best’ range
• Tesco – ‘Finest’ range
• Asda – ‘Extra Special’ range.Thanks for listening and here are my pancake recipes – enjoy!

Traditional pancakes

225g plain flour
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
600ml milk
50g unsalted butter, melted
Vegetable oil, for frying

1. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Whisk the eggs and milk into the flour. Add the melted butter and whisk into the mix.

2. Pre-heat the frying pan. Lightly oil the pan and pour in some mixture – making sure the pan only has a thin layer of mix by tilting and rotating the pan to make the batter spread out.

3. Cook for 30-40 seconds, until golden brown. Turn the pancake over and cook for a further 20-30 seconds.

4. Keep warm between layers of greaseproof paper while you cook the remainder. (this doesn’t happen in our house – they get eaten as we go along!)

Blueberry pancakes

200g self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
300ml milk or buttermilk
25g butter, melted
punnet blueberries
oil or butter for cooking
maple syrup, to serve

1. Sieve the flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt into a large bowl. Spoon out a well in the centre and pour in the eggs and milk. Whisk until you have a smooth thick batter, then beat in the melted butter in.
2. Gently pour in about a third of the blueberries to the batter and gently stir.
3. Heat a large frying pan and coat with oil or a little butter. Drop a large tablespoon of the batter onto the pan to form a rough disc shape about 8cm across – depending on your pan you could probably cook about 3 pancakes at a time.
4. Cook for a few minutes, lifting with a palette knife or silicone spatula to check for a golden appearance underneath. Then turn and repeat on the other side.
5. Stack up on a plate, scatter with the remaining blueberries and drizzle with maple syrup and serve.