Pancakes, French
INGREDIENTS for dish for 3 persons.- -2 eggs, 2 oz. of butter, 2 oz. of sifted sugar, 2 oz. of flour, 1/2 pint of new milk. AVERAGE COST, 6d.
Beat the eggs thoroughly, and put them into a basin with the butter, which should be beaten to a cream; stir in the sugar and flour, and when these ingredients are well mixed, add the milk; keep stirring and beating the mixture for a few minutes; put it on buttered plates, and bake in a quick oven for 20 minutes. Serve with a cut lemon and sifted sugar, or pile the pancakes high on a dish, with a layer of preserve or marmalade between them.
TIME.-20 minutes.
SEASONABLE at any time.
This is not a griddle pancake at all — it is a thin baked batter, closer to a set custard or a very light sponge, cooked on plates in a hot oven.
- Quick ovenRead "quick" as somewhere around 400-450F (200-230C). At that heat the batter puffs and colours at the edges rather than merely setting.
- Check well before 20 minutesOn thin modern tins the batter is likely done in 10-14 minutes, once set in the centre and browned at the rim; longer and it risks turning leathery.
- Half a pintBeeton's pint is the imperial one, so half a pint is 10 fl oz — about 1 1/4 US cups. With only 2 oz of flour the batter is deliberately very loose.
- New milkFresh unskimmed milk straight from the dairy, not soured or separated. Whole milk is the equivalent; skimmed gives a watery, pale result.
- Sifted sugarFine sugar sifted free of lumps — caster sugar today. The same sugar is meant for dusting at the end.
- Creaming butter into a thin batterTwo ounces of creamed butter will not stay emulsified once 10 fl oz of cold milk goes in. Melt the butter and let it cool slightly, or bring the milk to room temperature, or you will be beating out lumps.
- Buttered platesOvenproof plates, shallow tin pie plates or sandwich tins, generously buttered; the batter should sit no more than a few millimetres deep. Ordinary china dinner plates may not survive this heat.
- Yield and servingThree portions, as stated — expect three or four thin rounds. Serve them hot, either dusted with sugar and squeezed lemon or stacked with jam or marmalade between and cut in wedges.
"French pancakes" in Victorian English cookery books generally meant a batter enriched with butter and sugar and baked, as against the plain flour-egg-milk pancake fried in a pan for Shrove Tuesday; there is no documented French origin behind the name. The stated average cost of sixpence is at the low end for a sweet dish, and the note that it is seasonable at any time carries weight in a book organised around what the markets could supply - eggs, milk, butter, flour and sugar are all storecupboard or dairy staples rather than seasonal goods.