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Pancakes, Plain
Whisk two eggs thoroughly, and pour them into a bowl containing four table-spoonfuls of flour. Beat the mixture until it is smooth, and quite free from lumps, then add a pinch of salt, and two-thirds of a pint of new milk. Let the batter stand in a cool place for an hour or two, then fry the pancakes according to the directions given above; half an ounce of dripping will be required for each pancake. Time, five minutes to fry one pancake. Probable cost, 4d. Sufficient for three or four persons.
This is a thin English pancake batter of the crepe type, not the risen American breakfast cake. The proportions look wrong to modern eyes because they are: the batter is meant to be pourable and very loose.
- The proportionsFour tablespoons of flour is on the order of 1-2 oz (30-60 g) depending on how the spoon was filled; Victorian and heaped spoon measures ran larger than the modern level tablespoon. Two-thirds of an imperial pint is about 13 fl oz (380 ml). Taken literally the batter is very thin, and two eggs carry most of the structure, so the pancakes will be lacy and fragile rather than substantial.
- New milk"New milk" means fresh, unskimmed milk straight from the dairy. Whole milk is the direct equivalent; skimmed milk will give a leaner result.
- Mixing orderThe instruction to beat eggs into the flour first, then thin with milk, is the hinge of the method. Adding all the liquid at once is what produces lumps; the stiff paste stage is where you get the batter smooth.
- Resting the batterThe hour or two in a cool place lets the starch hydrate and the gluten relax, which makes the pancakes tender and stops them shrinking in the pan. Overnight in the refrigerator works just as well; stir before using, as it will separate.
- DrippingHalf an ounce of dripping per pancake is about a tablespoon, a generous amount by modern standards for a pan that would have been cast or wrought iron. In a nonstick or well-seasoned pan a smear of butter, oil or dripping wiped over the surface between pancakes is enough.
- The five-minute timingFive minutes for one thin pancake is generous, and the figure may cover the whole operation at the fire rather than the cooking of each side. On a modern hob a crepe of this thinness sets in about a minute on the first side and less on the second.
- Yield"Sufficient for three or four persons"; the recipe does not say how many pancakes that is, but this quantity of batter would make roughly eight to ten in a 7-8 inch pan. Serving them rolled with caster sugar and lemon juice is the usual English treatment.
- Probable costThe 4d. is Cassell's estimate of what the ingredients would cost at the time of publication in the 1870s-80s. It has no modern equivalent beyond telling you this was a cheap dish.
In a Victorian kitchen the same batter, thickened or thinned, produced Yorkshire pudding, toad-in-the-hole, fritter coating and pancakes alike — learning it once served half a dozen dishes. The English pancake is a thin one, closer to a French crepe than to the raised American griddle cake, and its association with Shrove Tuesday is generally traced to the need to use up eggs, milk and fat before the Lenten fast. Frying in dripping rather than butter is often said to be a mark of ordinary domestic economy: rendered beef fat was a by-product of the Sunday joint and would have cost little or nothing extra.