Time for some Belgian Waffles, Ummmm . . . I mean Pancakes
Once again I find myself behind in blogging about pancakes. This time I can't blame my hubby though, he's been very good about moving the pictures from the SD card to my computer's hard drive. I think this time it is because school started back up, and I had to go back to work full time for the first time in 4 years. It's tough getting used to working full time!
Anyway, I find myself back in Western Europe as I make a stop in Belgium. I will say that it was tough finding a recipe for Belgian pancakes. All of the recipes I kept pulling up were for Belgian waffles. I did discover a few things about Belgian waffles in my research though. I discovered that Belgians don't eat Belgian waffles for breakfast as we do here in the States. Instead they eat them as a snack or dessert. Also, what we Americans call a Belgian waffle is actually unknown in Belgium. In Belgium there are three types of waffles that are eaten, the Brussels waffle, the Liege waffle, and the stroopwafel. You can learn more about the first two waffles at belgianwaffle.org . The stroopwafel is originally from The Netherlands, so I'm sure I'll talk about it in more detail when we get to the Netherlands as a country. The Belgian waffle we Americans eat is a variation on the Brussels waffle.
O.K., now back to the Belgian pancake. After much searching, I finally found something that the Belgians might have once eaten as a pancake. It comes from Alison's Happy Domesticity blog. In this particular blog, Alison talks about many of her older recipes and how she ran across this particular recipe at vintagerecipes.com. While I tried going directly to the vintagerecipes.com website, I wasn't very successful in getting there, so I used the recipe from Alison's blog directly. Thanks Alison for posting it!
So, here we go. Ingredients:
2 cups of unsweetened thin applesauce
1 well-beaten egg
3 tablespoon syrup (the recipe just says syrup, we used maple syrup)
2 1/2 cups flour
3 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon shortening
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
First I beat the egg in a medium sized mixing bowl.
Next I added the apple sauce and syrup. Here is what it looked like:
In a separate bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients.
The photo is obviously pre-whisking. After whisking together the dry ingredients, mix in the wet ingredients until completely combined.
I love that you can actually see the last bits dripping out in that last picture! Once it's all mixed up, you will end up with a very thick batter. It almost looks like a pound cake type of batter.
Because of how thick this batter is, and the fact that the recipe as posted by Alison says to bake in the usual manner (remember, this is a vintage recipe), I almost suspect it was supposed to be baked more like a pound cake. However, I went ahead and fried them up as I would any other pancake. I warmed a bit of olive oil in a pan, poured 1/3 of a cup of batter in for each pancake, and then fried them up.
Oops! I messed up the flip!
When finished cooking, you'll end up with a rather large pile of pancakes since these things puffed up a lot!
The recipes says serve with butter and syrup. I opted for butter and berries.
I have to say, I was hoping for something a little bit more spectacular since Belgian waffles are soooo yummy (both the American version and the actual Belgian versions); however, they didn't live up to my expectations. They tasted just fine, but not as yummy as I had hoped. Maybe they needed to be made larger (mine were about 5-6" in diameter). If you make them, try to make them larger and let me know how they taste!
Anyway, I find myself back in Western Europe as I make a stop in Belgium. I will say that it was tough finding a recipe for Belgian pancakes. All of the recipes I kept pulling up were for Belgian waffles. I did discover a few things about Belgian waffles in my research though. I discovered that Belgians don't eat Belgian waffles for breakfast as we do here in the States. Instead they eat them as a snack or dessert. Also, what we Americans call a Belgian waffle is actually unknown in Belgium. In Belgium there are three types of waffles that are eaten, the Brussels waffle, the Liege waffle, and the stroopwafel. You can learn more about the first two waffles at belgianwaffle.org . The stroopwafel is originally from The Netherlands, so I'm sure I'll talk about it in more detail when we get to the Netherlands as a country. The Belgian waffle we Americans eat is a variation on the Brussels waffle.
O.K., now back to the Belgian pancake. After much searching, I finally found something that the Belgians might have once eaten as a pancake. It comes from Alison's Happy Domesticity blog. In this particular blog, Alison talks about many of her older recipes and how she ran across this particular recipe at vintagerecipes.com. While I tried going directly to the vintagerecipes.com website, I wasn't very successful in getting there, so I used the recipe from Alison's blog directly. Thanks Alison for posting it!
So, here we go. Ingredients:
2 cups of unsweetened thin applesauce
1 well-beaten egg
3 tablespoon syrup (the recipe just says syrup, we used maple syrup)
2 1/2 cups flour
3 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon shortening
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
First I beat the egg in a medium sized mixing bowl.
Next I added the apple sauce and syrup. Here is what it looked like:
In a separate bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients.
The photo is obviously pre-whisking. After whisking together the dry ingredients, mix in the wet ingredients until completely combined.
I love that you can actually see the last bits dripping out in that last picture! Once it's all mixed up, you will end up with a very thick batter. It almost looks like a pound cake type of batter.
Because of how thick this batter is, and the fact that the recipe as posted by Alison says to bake in the usual manner (remember, this is a vintage recipe), I almost suspect it was supposed to be baked more like a pound cake. However, I went ahead and fried them up as I would any other pancake. I warmed a bit of olive oil in a pan, poured 1/3 of a cup of batter in for each pancake, and then fried them up.
Oops! I messed up the flip!
When finished cooking, you'll end up with a rather large pile of pancakes since these things puffed up a lot!
The recipes says serve with butter and syrup. I opted for butter and berries.
I have to say, I was hoping for something a little bit more spectacular since Belgian waffles are soooo yummy (both the American version and the actual Belgian versions); however, they didn't live up to my expectations. They tasted just fine, but not as yummy as I had hoped. Maybe they needed to be made larger (mine were about 5-6" in diameter). If you make them, try to make them larger and let me know how they taste!
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