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Pancakes, Irish
Beat eight yolks and four whites of eggs, strain them into a pint of warm cream, add grated nutmeg and sugar to taste. Put into a frying-pan three ounces of fresh butter, stir it over the fire, and as it warms pour it into the cream, etc., then mix into a smooth batter with about half a pint of flour. Fry the pancakes, which should be very thin; the first with a piece of butter, and the others without. Serve hot on a napkin.
This is a crêpe batter in all but name: heavy on yolks and cream, light on flour, and meant to be cooked paper-thin. The whole thing hinges on not scrambling the eggs when the hot butter goes in.
- Temper the butter, do not cook the eggsMelt the three ounces of butter until just liquid and barely warm, then pour it into the egg-and-cream mixture in a thin stream while whisking. Butter taken to the browning point will set the yolks into threads that no amount of beating will smooth out.
- Imperial measuresA pint here is the imperial 20 fl oz, so about 2 1/2 US cups of cream. The half-pint of flour is a volume measure, roughly 1 1/4 US cups or about 5 oz by weight — enough to leave the batter the consistency of thin pouring cream.
- Eight yolks, four whitesThe lopsided ratio favours richness and a tender set, and holding back whites keeps the pancakes from turning tough and rubbery. Four spare whites are left over; save them for meringue or an omelette.
- Rest the batterHalf an hour off the heat lets the flour hydrate and the bubbles subside, which helps the pancakes cook thin and even rather than patchy. The recipe itself gives no resting time.
- Butter only for the firstThere is enough butter in the batter itself to keep the rest from sticking, and adding more to a hot pan each time tends to give greasy, freckled edges. The recipe does not say why.
- Pan and heatUse a 8–10 in. crepe or skillet over medium-high heat, about a scant quarter-cup of batter per pancake, swirled immediately. Each side wants under a minute; these are done when the surface loses its gloss and the underside is lace-coloured.
- Serving on a napkinA folded linen napkin on a warmed dish absorbs steam so the stack does not go limp. Sugar, or sugar and lemon, was a common accompaniment; the recipe itself specifies nothing beyond serving hot.
- YieldAbout sixteen thin pancakes from this quantity, serving six to eight.
Recipes titled "Irish pancakes" appear in English cookery books from the eighteenth century onward, and the name signals not a dish from Ireland so much as a particular style: cream instead of milk, a heavy weighting of yolks, nutmeg, and a batter thinned almost to the point of being a custard. Cassell's carries the heading too, which is typical of the way Victorian compendia absorbed Georgian recipes wholesale under their old names. Pancakes of every sort carried Shrovetide associations, being a way to use up eggs, butter and cream before Lent, and a batter this rich makes most sense read as a feast-day dish rather than an everyday breakfast. The direction to serve on a napkin is a mark of the period's table service, where the cloth absorbed steam and grease and signalled that the dish had come straight from the pan.