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PANCAKES (a la Creme)
Rub the rind of half a small fresh lemon with three or four large lumps of sugar until the yellow part is all taken off, then crush the sugar to powder, and mix with it a pinch of powdered cinnamon, a small pinch of salt, and an ounce of dried flour. Make this into a smooth paste with a little cold milk and an ounce of clarified butter, then stir in very gradually half a pint of thick cream, and the well-whisked yolks of four and the whites of two eggs. Melt a quarter of an ounce of butter in a small frying-pan, fry the pancakes very quickly, and serve them as hot as possible. They should be very thin; a second supply of butter will not be required for frying. Time, three or four minutes to fry each pancake. Probable cost, 2s. Sufficient for four or five persons.
A very rich, unleavened crêpe batter — mostly cream and egg yolk with barely enough flour to hold it. The hinge is heat: sugar and cream in the pan will colour long before a normal pancake would, so the fat and the flame both want watching.
- Rubbing the lemon on sugarWorth doing properly: press the lump sugar hard against the peel until the lumps are stained yellow and greasy with the oil. It extracts more aroma than grated zest, and the flavoured sugar carries much of the dish's flavour.
- Weights in cupsAn ounce of flour is about 1/4 cup; an ounce of butter is 2 tablespoons; a quarter-ounce for the pan is about 1 1/2 teaspoons. The size of Victorian sugar lumps varied, so three or four large lumps cannot be converted precisely.
- Half a pint of creamAn imperial half-pint is 10 fl oz, so about 1 1/4 US cups. "Thick cream" here means heavy or double cream, not soured or clotted.
- Add the cream slowly, as toldThe flour is made into a paste first and then let down gradually for a reason — an ounce of flour in over a cup of liquid will go lumpy instantly if the liquid goes in at once. Strain the finished batter if it does, and rest it 30 minutes so the flour hydrates.
- Frying time is too longThree or four minutes per pancake sits oddly with the recipe's own instruction to fry very quickly. A tissue-thin cream batter in a hot pan sets in 45–60 seconds on the first side and 20–30 on the second; longer and the sugar in the batter may burn before the centre cooks.
- Why no second butteringThe batter carries an ounce of clarified butter of its own, so the pancakes self-release. Use a well-seasoned crêpe pan or nonstick of 7–8 inches, and clarified rather than whole butter for the pan — milk solids scorch at the heat this needs.
- Handling themWith two whites to four yolks and this much cream, the pancakes are fragile and closer to a set custard than to a pancake. Loosen the whole edge before turning, and use a wide thin spatula rather than a flip.
- Yield and servingPerhaps eight to ten pancakes from the batch, which would suit the original's four or five people. Serve rolled or folded in quarters, and eat them straight from the pan as instructed — they toughen as they sit.
The "probable cost, 2s." is the era's characteristic touch — Cassell's costed almost every recipe so a housekeeper could judge a dish against her weekly budget, and two shillings for a supper sweet for five marks this as an occasional indulgence rather than everyday fare, cream being the expensive part. Abrading citrus peel on lump sugar was a common nineteenth-century kitchen method for cakes, custards and punches, at a time when sugar was still sold in hard loaves that had to be broken up; it faded as granulated sugar and cheap graters took over.