It’s the first day of fall. Officially fall arrived earlier this week, but until yesterday the temperatures still hovered close to 30°C (mid-80°s F) and it felt like midsummer. It’s much cooler today, it’s Sunday, and I woke up thinking of pancakes. A few years ago Thomas started a tradition of making pancakes on Sunday morning, and my sons have grown to depend upon it. (It would barely be an exaggeration to say that they bring out the “pancake cookbook,” as Joy of Cooking is referred to in our house, before we even come down for breakfast.) But with the summer – the heat, the traveling, the days at the beach – we had not made pancakes in months.
Today was a good day to reinstate Sunday pancakes, though I didn’t pull out Joy of Cooking. We happened to have orange juice in the fridge (which does not happen very often as we are a grapefruit-juice family), and every time there is orange juice, I think of orange thyme pancakes. We ate them in a bed and breakfast in Wyoming ten years ago on a skiing vacation.
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Makes 12 four-inch (10 cm) pancakes
1/4 cup (55 g) butter
2 cups (250 g) flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 Tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp ground thyme (fresh or dried)
2 eggs
1 3/4 cup (450 ml) orange juice
Coconut oil to grease griddle (or non-stick skillet)
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Melt butter over low heat and let cool.
Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl.
In a separate bowl, beat eggs well with a fork, then add orange juice and melted butter. Add egg/juice mixture to the dry ingredients carefully, mixing just enough to combine until the flour disappears. **Lumps are fine; the important thing is not to beat too much or the pancakes won’t be fluffy.** If batter seems stiff, add a little orange juice.
Grease griddle (non-stick skillet) and place over high heat. (I use coconut oil to cook pancakes. It works perfectly because it doesn’t burn.) Once the griddle is hot, pour little puddles of batter (the size is entirely up to you), reduce heat to medium, and stay close, checking constantly until you start noticing bubbles popping up. Turn over the pancakes with a wide spatula and, within barely a minute, the pancake is ready. To make more pancakes, repeat process, adding a little oil every time to make sure they don’t stick.
The pancakes can be kept in a covered pan in a 250°F (120°C) oven for a little while if you want to make all the pancakes first and serve them at once.
Nettle and Quince 