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Plain Pancakes
Whisk 2 eggs thoroughly, and pour them into a bowl containing 4 tablespoonfuls 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. Sufficient for three or four persons.
This is a thin English pancake in the Shrove Tuesday mould rather than a raised American griddle cake: eggs and milk with just enough flour to bind, cooked one at a time in a smear of hot fat.
- The hinge: a very thin batterWith only a few spoons of flour to well over a cup of milk, this batter should pour like heavy cream and set almost on contact with the pan. Do not thicken it in the hope of a fluffier cake; the whole point is a lacy sheet you can roll.
- Two-thirds of a pintRead as the imperial pint of 20 fl oz, two-thirds is about 13 imperial fl oz, near enough 1 2/3 US cups. Add it gradually to the egg-and-flour paste or you will fight lumps.
- Four tablespoonfuls of flourWhether these are level or heaped is not stated, which matters here: level gives roughly 1 oz, heaped closer to 2 oz. Start with the smaller amount, and if the first pancake tears in the pan whisk in another spoonful.
- New milkThis means fresh, unskimmed milk straight from the dairy. Whole milk is the direct substitute; skimmed milk gives a paler, more brittle pancake.
- DrippingHalf an ounce is about a tablespoon of beef or pork fat rendered from a roast. Clarified butter, a neutral oil, or plain butter watched carefully all work, and a tablespoon per pancake is generous in a modern nonstick pan -- a thin film is enough.
- Resting the batterThe hour or two in a cool place lets the starch hydrate and the gluten relax, which gives a more tender pancake. It is worth doing, and the batter keeps overnight covered in the refrigerator.
- Five minutes is far too longFive minutes is longer than needed -- the stated figure may cover the whole business of one pancake rather than time in the pan. Over a properly hot pan a pancake this thin needs about a minute on the first side and thirty to forty seconds on the second; longer and it dries to leather.
- Yield and servingExpect six to eight pancakes from an 8-inch pan, which matches the stated three or four persons. The period serving is sugar and a squeeze of lemon, rolled and eaten at once; stack finished ones on a warm plate under a cloth.
Thin egg-and-milk pancakes fried in dripping are long established in British kitchens, and their association with Shrove Tuesday is traditionally explained by the need to use up eggs, milk and fat before the Lenten fast. The English pancake of this kind was rolled with sugar and lemon as a pudding course, unlike the leavened American griddle cake, which belongs to breakfast. The instruction to use dripping rather than butter reflects an ordinary economy: fat saved from a roast was a standing kitchen resource, and recipes of the period often specify it.