This recipe comes from Alexa's book:
Ladies, a Plate
If you would like more recipes like it, you can buy the book at the bookshop
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Ingredients
- 1 egg
- 30 g caster sugar
- 170 ml milk
- 125 g flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 15 g melted butter
- 25 g golden syrup*
* optional
- 1 egg
- 2 tbsp caster sugar
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 cup flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 tbsp melted butter
- 1 tbsp golden syrup*
* optional
Perfect Pikelets
For me, this recipe makes perfect pikelets. Myra Lawrie was my adviser on the pikelet front and I have given her recipe to a number of novice cooks, who have found it easy and reliable. But there are many others in widespread use, so if you already have a winner, stick with it – a good pikelet recipe is a faithful friend for last-minute baking. Pikelets keep well in a tin for a day or so, and I like them sandwiched with a little butter and jam, then well wrapped in waxed paper for a car journey or a lunch box. Soft, not too sweet, and very satisfying.
Getting ready
Put a heavy-based frying pan or a cast iron griddle on a medium element to heat up. Put a folded clean tea towel onto a board beside the stove. As you make the pikelets cover them with the tea towel to keep them warm and soft.
Mixing and cooking
- Put the egg and sugar into a mixing bowl and beat with a rotary hand-beater or a whisk until pale and fluffy. This will take less than a minute.
- Tip in the milk, then the sifted flour and baking powder, and lastly the melted butter. Mix quickly to a light, spongy batter. (If you are using the golden syrup, melt it with the butter and add it at the same time. Many recipes suggest that this makes pikelets keep better.)
- Now grease the surface of your pan very lightly with butter* and begin.
- Use a tablespoon or a dessertspoon to pour the batter onto the griddle – hold the spoon vertically and pour from the tip and the circles will be perfect. Make about four at a time.
- Wait until bubbles appear on the top of the pikelets and begin to burst. Flip them over carefully with a spatula and cook the other side for just about 30 seconds until lightly browned.
- Pile your pikelets in between two layers of the clean tea towel and keep going until they are all cooked.
- Serve them forth. Jam is pretty essential, with either butter or whipped cream – but probably not both. Makes about 18 pikelets.
* Rather than grease your pan or griddle, you could rub the surface quickly with a cut potato – the pikelets don’t stick and their surface will be very evenly brown, rather than speckled. I came across this ingenious handy hint in two old manuscript cookery books and it works for me.