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Currant Pancakes
Put the thin rind of a lemon into a saucepan with a pint of milk, and let it stand by the side of the fire for some time to draw out the flavour. When this is extracted, put with the milk two ounces of butter and two table-spoonfuls of sugar, and when the butter is melted, put the milk on one side to cool. Mix eight ounces of flour very smoothly with six well-beaten eggs and two table-spoonfuls of water, add a pinch of salt and a table-spoonful of brandy, and afterwards the cooled milk. Melt a little butter or lard in the frying-pan; when quite hot, pour in sufficient batter to cover it thinly, immediately strew a few dried and picked currants over it, loosen the edges, brown the pancake on both sides, and serve with a little sugar and lemonjuice. Time, a few minutes to fry. Allow one for each person. Probable cost, 1s. 2d., exclusive of the brandy.
A thin, crepe-style batter enriched with eggs and butter, flavoured with lemon-infused milk. The mechanics are simple; most of what needs translating is units and the word "currants".
- Currants means driedThese are Zante currants, the small dried grapes sold near the raisins, not fresh redcurrants or blackcurrants. "Dried and picked" means going through them for stems and grit, which good packaged fruit no longer requires.
- An Imperial pintCassell's pint is 20 fl oz, about 570 ml, not the American 16 oz. With 8 oz (about 1¾ cups) flour and six eggs, the batter should be thin enough to swirl across the pan and coat it in a film.
- Infusing the lemon"By the side of the fire" means gentle heat well below a simmer. Warm the milk with the pared rind (no white pith), then take it off and let it stand for a quarter of an hour or so; the recipe gives no time, only "some time to draw out the flavour." The rind needs lifting out before the milk goes into the batter, though the recipe does not say so.
- Cool the milk properlyThe instruction to set the milk aside is not idle politeness. Hot milk poured into beaten eggs can begin to set them and leave threads of cooked egg through the batter, though the flour the eggs are mixed with affords some protection.
- Rest the batterThe recipe does not say so, but 30 minutes' rest lets the flour hydrate and the gluten relax, which gives a tenderer pancake and fewer lumps. It can sit covered in the fridge for several hours.
- Pan heat"Quite hot" means the fat shimmers and a drop of batter sets on contact. Use a wiped film of butter or lard, not a pool, or the first side fries rather than browns evenly.
- Scatter currants immediatelyThey must go on while the surface is still wet, so they sink in and are held when the pancake is flipped. Currants added later fall off, and any that sit directly on the hot pan will scorch.
- Brandy and costA tablespoon of brandy is there for flavour, and the pancakes are perfectly good without it. The 1s. 2d. is a Victorian household price, quoted so a cook could compare one dish against another.
- Yield"Allow one for each person" means a single pancake per diner as a course. This much batter will run to a good many thin pancakes -- the exact number depends entirely on pan size and how thinly you pour.
Pancakes made with a rich egg batter and scattered with dried fruit were long-standing English fare, and this is one of the plainer sweet dishes in the book. The dried currant takes its name from Corinth, the Greek port that shipped the small seedless grapes to Britain -- the medieval "raisins of Corauntz" -- and by the nineteenth century it was among the cheaper dried fruits in the grocer's shop, which is why it turns up in everything from buns to boiled puddings. The lemon-peel infusion and the spoonful of brandy suggest a household with a reasonably stocked store cupboard. The "probable cost, exclusive of the brandy" is characteristic of Cassell's, which gives a probable cost for the great majority of its dishes.