British pancakes are floppier than American pancakes. For why?

Not sayin' this is a bad thing, just sayin.

damp climate

"pancakes"

what do you mean by floppier? Do you mean that American pancakes are thicker, denser, ...?

not cooked with bacon and eggs but love.

you don't put any egg in your pancakes?

Yeah brit pancakes are crepes really. I do appreciate a big fat American pancake with syrup and butter and bacon and all that, but a crepe with just lemon and sugar can't be beat.

lemon juice or lemon curd?

juice. & caster sugar.

Crepey thread.

move to ILTMI

is pancakes code for vaginas?

key word = floppier

Difference is down to baking powder. Ours don't include any. US (and scotch) pancakes do, I think. Fluffs 'em up a bit so they come out fatter and therefore firmer. Sugar in the batter probably has an effect too, we don't usually include any.

So, are British pancakes as thin as French pancakes (i.e. crepes) or are they somewhere in between those and the American variety... I've only had American pancakes.

you don't put any egg in your pancakes?

Crazy talk.

My recipe for classic British pancakes.

175g plain flour
400 ml milk
1 egg
1 egg yolk
pinch of salt
tsp caster sugar
some melted butter.

Blitz and cook.

I think (traditionally) Brits like their pancakes slightly thicker than crepes. Easier to toss.

I don't know where this no egg thing comes from.

UK ones are basically made the same way as French crepes, but tend to have a higher flour/milk ratio, so the batter's a bit thicker and the resulting pancakes are a bit thicker.

floppy, lifeless pieces of dough. not as thin as crepes definitely.
I had flat cold pancakes + jam in glasgow once. so traumatizing.

And that represents all UK panakes to you?

We also have oatcakes, which I love.
http://www.staffordshireoatcakes.com/images/remember_oatcakes.jpg

I meant with, i.e. also on the plate.

do you people from the small island nation put things like blueberries, strawberries, etc. in your pancakes, or is that solely an Americanism?

i.e.

http://wwwdelivery.superstock.com/WI/223/1764/PreviewComp/SuperStock_1764R-2238.jpg

Sweet pancakes with savoury eggs/bacon = wrong.

waiter there's a sausage in my oatcake

but breakfast beans are kinda sweet and syrupy though ...

Is British butter typically salted? Saltiness or lack thereof has a big impact on a pancake's quality, I think (I don't like syrups on mine, just butter or nothing if they're good enough plain).

Sweet pancakes with savoury eggs/bacon = wrong.

― Samuel (a hoy hoy), Monday, August 24, 2009 11:38 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

my favorite breakfast combo

see: mcgriddles

Yeah, that sausage is weird. Oatcakes only need butter. And marmite.

Seems we are always arguing about pancakes.
Stuff to put on pancakes - S/D

I don't know where this no egg thing comes from.

I use no egg!

http://www.goodnessdirect.co.uk/detail/316644b.jpg

malt vinegar and sugar on pancakes???

Sweet pancakes with savoury eggs/bacon = wrong.

No, you couldn't be more wrong. Skip the eggs though, just a big knob of butter and more maple syrup than you think you can manage to go with the crispiest streaky bacon. Lush.

Think about it, pork goes great with apple sauce, ham comes with honey glaze etc.

Yeah, I don't get it when my fellow Britishers balk at the idea of pancakes + syrup + bacon + sausage. Sweet things plus meat works well, and isn't exactly alien to us - we have apple sauce with pork, cranberry sauce with turkey, etc etc.

Oh, xp.

I have friends who similarly heave at the idea of French toast with anything sweet adorning it. mORANS

Yes, morans - the acid in fruit is a good foil for the meat in the case of roasts or chops with various fruit sauces, and you only need to watch one docu about Tudor snacking to realize that. French toast is basically the same ingredients as BREAD AND BUTTER PUDDING like Yorkshire puddings are the sugar and cinnamon-less Dutch baby or pannakoeken.

Scottish hotcakes are almost exactly like US pancakes, and weirdly I just figured this out yesterday looking at the ingredients on a pack of the Scottish ones at Waitrose. The real answer to what US and Scottish cakes have that is missing in standard Pancake Day UK pancake is BUTTERMILK.

Another weird thing: in the UK they sell the Scottish/proto-US cakes pre-made and wrapped in plastic, next to the crumpets.

yeah, i've never known what to do with these, so i generally stay away. have made some ace us pancakes myself but often, i am ashamed to say, with a shake'n'bake mix.

Buttermilk is not sold here the way it is in the US (why? I don't get it, you'd think the British dairy industry missed a trick) so every American you know in the UK either has or wants a packet of Bisquick, bought in Selfridges at the same time as Libby's canned pumpkin (for Thanksgiving pies).

they used to sell bisquik at my local sainsbos when i lived in wimbledon, heavy sigh. though now i live in stokey buttermilk is only a trip to the health food store away...

Waitrose has buttermilk, suzy, sold in a tub not a bottle but it is there.

Are there a lot of documentaries about Tudor snacking?

Buttermilk stopped being mainstream-available in a bottle about the time my mom stopped ordering dairy goods from a milkman. It's more like whey (when you churn butter from cream, the leftover plasma-ish liquid is the buttermilk). I'm off to Waitrose later and will keep an eye out. I did a search after commenting and found a blogger getting chastised for wanting buttermilk in the UK from the kind of Brit who'd probably commit suicide if deprived of tea bags stateside.

LOL there's been a BBC series where two restaurant critics/TV pundits live for a week on say Roman diet, Tudor diet, Victorian diet in the manner of Supersize Me. I'd imagine it will form some sort of morning programming juggernaut on BBC America soon enough.

It comes in a quart bottles from giant eagle, but we are oldschool in Pittsburgh.

didn't heston blumenthal do something similar earlier this year, too? a little more showy and extravagant, but with the historical diet perspective in place.

In the States, I always keep this on hand:

http://www.surfasonline.com/images/products/16238L.jpg

^ puts me in mind of these three guys:

http://www.fiutaprezzi.com/images/standard/30_bb92b25f75d325965e5b444d9f7af017.jpg

Stevie, it will probably become BBC America fodder too, much more satisfying than the Perkins/Coren shows.

Bisquick is kind of the bomb for strawberry shortcake needs (you can't busk that by substituting a scone) and it looms large in MN anyway (General Mills HQ is two miles from my mom's).

Ed, it sounds like people there enjoy heart attack for dinner in a way that completely outstrips the Midwest. Is what you're describing the trad buttermilk stuff or the stuff that's a lot like lassi?

Something like that, we can also still get milk in glass returnable bottles as well.

We also have Pamela's hotcakes, which are something between a british pancake and an american one, still have buttermilk and baking powder in them but thinner and crispy round the edges. The president likes them too, I hope he takes the G20 leaders out for breakfast there, although not to the branch in shadyside please.

http://www.gayot.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/obama-pancake-breakfast.jpg

http://www.pamelasrestaurants.com/images/HomePancakes.jpg

ok so british pancakes are totally winning this one, right

It's probably better to think of British pancakes as crepes and not enter them into competition against my mom's cinnamon-nutmeg pancakes made in the shape of bunny rabbit heads.

yes the world-famous british pancakes are obviously winning

slathered in camembert and chocolate

xp to whoever said his dad uses a lot of oil on the griddle: Oh. Well, I wouldn't hate that, but it's not what I think of first w/r/t pancakes. Fluffy, that's what they need to be. No idea what LJ is even talking about.

I think I'm talking once more about a British interpretation of American cuisine! Ignorance, bliss, all that

tbh nearly all these pancakes are sounding so, so good to me right now.

Fluffy and rich sounds about right, for a slightly thicker, more crumpet-like treat. Regarding an American pancake as a New World crumpet is really helping my perception of it

In my experience, southern pancakes are crispier because of oil/butter grilling, and northern ones are bigger and fluffier. In Nashville I've had tremendously good cornmeal cakes, crispy like a hash brown.

(xcept crispy pancakes obv)

(I didn't think - US style - pancakes with sausage etc was a very good idea, 'till I tried it.)(Laurel's spicy pancakes also sound delicious).

wtf at whoever said ham & cheese doesn't belong in a crepe?

PS: They're not spicy, just contain cinnamon & a dash of nutmeg. Makes them fragrant as heck.

those sound good ... when I was a kid, my mom tried to make pancakes in animal shapes, and most of the time there was little resemblance ... one time she managed to do a pretty good cat, and she was so proud she almost forbade us to eat it.

americans patriotically repping for florida

Crepes are sweet, galettes are savoury.

I've had sweet crepes and savory crepes; I thought a galette was a cake with fruit.

You are also right. Galettes can definitely be sweet. Here is one I would eat for instance.
http://www.foodstylernyc.com/images/nectarine-galette.jpg

^^ that is something that fits what I think of as a galette

To be honest when someone says galette to me I think of this.
http://www.nicecupofteaandasitdown.com/biscuits/media/galettesbretonnes.jpg

...which always come in lovely packaging. Sometimes the packaging is better than the biscuit.

Galettes:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3070/2838995245_237e162724.jpg?v=0

http://indolentdandy.net/fitzroyalty/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/crepe3.jpg

As made at Breizoz Breton creperie in Melb. Mmmmm so good filled with soft caramelised onions, and a side of Breton cider to wash it down.

eating smoked salmon/gruyere/portabello mushroom crepes right now ... they are good. drunk cooking is fun!!!

sounds pretty tasty to me.

they are pretty awesome!!!

I'm just amazed you managed to think of it and produce it... while drunk!

I would have just sat on the floor crying and eating raw mushrooms out of the paper bag.

I was at a show and there was a fog machine, which for whatever reason smelled like maple syrup or maple donuts, and I'd gotten the ingredients for the crepes last night, so in lieu of making pancakes, I made crepes ... from a mix, and I almost dropped the first one on the floor ... but they turned out pretty good.

just read this thread and am pretty amazed that it stayed civil from start to finish. wp!

that's assuming it's over ...

maybe someone will get petulant about the concept of savory crepes.

this is what british people call "flapjacks", not even kidding:

http://www.daylesfordorganic.com/content/ebiz/lightmaker/invt/organicflapjack/FLAPJACK.jpg

isn't that a rice krispie treat?

is this what the British call "French toast" then:
http://www.chocablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/reesescups2.jpg

I love (British) flapjacks, but they are very very variable in quality.

We call French toast what it is - Eggy bread.

And now I want some.

I totally <3 <3 <3 Britishers flapjacks. They are sweet oaty goodness. But I was kind of raised on them. My scots gran used to call them "crunchies" which they never were.

do they taste like rice krispie treats?

No, they are made with oats (hence "oaty goodness"!)
When I made them as a child they need tend to be crunchy, and I still prefer them that way. Most people make them too thick.

they need tend = did tend

These look good.
http://www.runningoutside.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/flapjacks.jpg

I am generally against faffing with yr basic flapjack receipe but these
http://www.waitrose.com/recipe/Louise's_Flapjacks.aspx
are delicious and so easy to make.

(sorry to keep going on about flapjacks but it's a slight obsession with me)

http://images.portoeditora.pt/getresourcesservlet/image?EBbDj3QnkSUjgBOkfaUbsI8xBp%2F033q5Xpv56y8baM5EAbiUIZ3lRW8BGWmxtifO&width=150

If they are perfect, they are kind of crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

Mine always turned out gooey. But then again, I kinda like gooey. When I was little, I could never get the batter into the oven, I would just wolf it down raw. Oats, butter, brown sugar, you can't really go wrong.

what do americans call a flapjack then?

English pancakes!

If they are perfect, they are kind of crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

otmfm. See National Trust tea rooms for confirmation.

flapjack is another name for pancake.

According to wiki:

In Canada, the United States, and South Africa, flapjack is another term for a thin pancake that is not only crispy, but slightly chewy as well. A largely defining attribute of a flapjack is its large diameter, commonly measuring 12" (30 cm) or more. A flapjack is typically made using a corn millet based batter as opposed to pancakes which use a flour based batter. The two are often confused and today are nearly synonymous.

Thanks, Ned Trifle, I am now drooling and will have to adjournal to John Lewis foodhall post haste to see if I can find such a thing.

If they are perfect, they are kind of crunchy on the outside and chewy on the inside.

Mine always turned out gooey. But then again, I kinda like gooey. When I was little, I could never get the batter into the oven, I would just wolf it down raw. Oats, butter, brown sugar, you can't really go wrong.

Weird, this sounds very close to the recipe for our Anzac biscuits (and square slice-like look aside they look like them too):

http://www.readersdigest.com.au/global/AU/images/au/GB_anzac_biscuits.gif

Tho anzac biscuits have golden syrup instead of brown sugar i think

every kids first year 7 home ec assignment iirc

yeah I think yr right! Ugh I hate them so much.

they're just not all that tasty