It's Shrove Tuesday - and You Can Have Pancakes Too!
Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day is an important British tradition. If you can no longer eat eggs, dairy products (and perhaps gluten) you might think that your pancake days were over, but don't worry - it is still possible! They might not taste exactly the same, but you can get around that with plenty of maple syrup.
I have tried a few different recipes, with varying success, but this one seemed to work quite well.
I'm not sure where my original pancake batter recipe came from, I had it written down in my notebook from my pre-free-from years, but it was as follows:
- 150g flour
- 300ml milk
- 1 egg
- pinch of salt
- OK, lets do the easy one first - replace the milk with soya milk.
- Replacing the egg is more tricky. For this, I used egg-replacement powder, following the instructions to replace 1 egg.
- For the flour I used a gluten-free plain flour. I did find I needed a tiny bit of xantham gum - around 1/8 teaspoon. If you put too much in it gets very thick, very quickly (an experiment with 1/2 teaspoon ended up in the bin).
- Next step is to whisk it all together and you should get a batter with the right sort of consistency. Then heat a non-stick pan, and add oil. I like to use the spray oil that you can get in supermarkets, with the non stick pan you don't need much.
- It's been a while since I made pancakes with 'normal' ingredients, but it seems that the free-from ones take a bit longer to cook. So be patient... (waiting is the worst aspect of pancake day).
The result: I wasn't able to get them quite as thin as traditional pancakes without them breaking apart, but they taste pretty good, and the important thing is that no-one has to miss out!