Pancake Sundays

When I was young, I loved simple breakfasts such as soft boiled eggs with soya sauce, steaming congee, plain kaya on toast and of course, hot roti canai dipped in curry sauce.  Some of my favourite memories are of school holidays at my grandmother’s house in Penang where I would wake up to the sound of a local “uncle” riding past on his bicycle honking a little horn calling ‘naaaasssiiiii leeemmaaakkk', one of my other favourite breakfasts. 

Some mornings, my mother would take my cousins and myself to the nearby beach to watch the fishermen haul in their catch.  We would then take a detour to the local market on the way back and savour the chee cheong fun, curry mee and curry puffs by local vendors.  It would be peaceful, cool but sweatingly tropical when we left and the sun would be high in the sky with heat searing through the humidity by the time we got back.  I used to love those mornings.

It makes me a little sad that my children will not get to experience the childhood experiences in Malaysia that I had but on the other hand, I hope they will have their own special memories of their childhood and I always try to give it a helping hand.

Hence Sunday mornings are pancake mornings.  Perhaps when my girls are adults, they’ll remember waking up to the smell of fragrant vanilla pancakes in the morning (I would personally prefer roti canai but due to the lack of a local roti canai man, I’d probably have to wake up at 5am to try to make a poor version of them myself!  I like my sleep too much.)

 

My Sunday morning pancakes recipe

75g butter (melted)
2 cups of self-raising flour (I sometimes substitute half the amount with spelt flour and 1 tsp baking power but it does make the pancakes heavier)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup oat bran or oats (to give me the impression that these are healthy pancakes)
2 cups milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
Oil for greasing the pan

1. Mix dry ingredients (flour, sugar, oats) in a big bowl.

2. Add the egg, butter, milk and vanilla.

3. Whisk all ingredients together until a batter is formed.

4. Heat a pan.  I tend to grease it when it’s quite hot.

5. Drop large scoopfuls of batter into the pan.

6. Cook over a low fire until bubbles start appearing.

7. Flip and cook until browned.

If I have overripe bananas sitting around, I’ll mash 1 or 2 and add them to the batter as well. 

A word of warning, in our house, we like our pancakes stodgy and heavy enough to crack the tiles on the floor if you drop one!