It's ridiculously early this year, but today is Shrove Tuesday - pancake day. Traditionally in Britain we eat pancakes, often served with sugar and lemon, on the last day before Lent.The best pancakes in the world used to be made in the Welsh Fudge Shop in Aberystwyth, now sadly closed down. They made all sorts of pancakes. I fondly remember pineapple and Malibu pancakes, the hot chocolate fudge pancake of course, and peanut butter and banana. But their finest creation was the elephant pancake.
I worked in the Fudge shop as a short-order cook for a while, so I can reveal the secrets of the elephant pancake. Surprisingly, the pancakes were made from McDougal's pancake mix, mixed with water "by eye", rather than from flour, eggs and milk as you'd expect. The orange and Grand Marnier and the pineapple and Malibu pancakes originally had the named liqueurs in, but one day they ran out and the chef (not me) improvised with substituting orange juice for the Grand Marnier and pineapple juice for the Malibu. There were no complaints so they never bothered ordering any more liqueurs. But I remember the day I ordered a pancake with liqueur and noticed it wasn't the real deal any more.
The recipe for the elephant pancake is as follows:
Elephant Pancake
Put a pancake on a large plate. Spread tinned cherry pie filling on top. Put another pancake on top and place tinned pineapple chunks on that. Pour maple syrup over the pineapple. Put another pancake on and place banana slices on that. Pour maple syrup over the banana. Put the final pancake on top and microwave the whole lot for a couple of minutes. Pour hot chocolate fudge sauce over it all, sprinkle on dessicated coconut and serve with ice cream and cream.
9 comments:
Do you remember Monica's Milk Bar in Aber? It was probably just called the Milk Bar but it was run by Monica, hence the informal name. Fabulous place which gave us much comfort when times were hard (and they often were when we lived in Aber!). We used to seek respite in the two old cinemas with the unraked seating and old gas heaters on the walls. I recall paying 35p admission!!
My belly's busted just reading your recipe! I stuck to my family's traditional lemon and golden syrup flavour today - yummy :)
Great post!
Someone on the radio suggested marmalade and grated plain chocolate pancakes - they called them Jaffa Pan Cakes. The kids had alternatively chocolate spread, and lime juice with sugar on theirs.
Sounds exotic! and probably delicious if you like that kind of thing, I like the sound of the liqueurs, but generally I'm a traditionalist and like my sugar and lemon juice. My kids, on the other hand, prefer half a jar of golden syrup per pancake, bluurrgghhhhh.
Hazel xx
oh man... i was licking the screen reading this.. *and* i stuffed meself silly on pancakes last night!!
I remember when you three were all little and I used to have to fight you for the pancake I got. (Notice the singular? By the time she'd come near to satisfying you lot, and, of course, herself, there was little either mixture or strength left for poor Dad.) I was lucky if I got one forkful off the plate before it disappeared.
When were you in Aber? I was there Sept 1981 - August 1988 & lived in the mansion in Rhydyfelin, Alex. on the front, Cae Melyn & out in Pentr'llyn Llanilar. I was a student in the Music Dept under Ian Parrott & the new prof (David Wulstan) & CLW, before working in Huw Owen, CLW library & Canolfan Llen. up on the cliff. I remember the Fudge Shop (but not the crempogi) & the Milk Bar. Did you ever go in the Cwps? Until I was left paralysed, I'd often play in there with Robin Huw, Jon, Andy Cairns, others in the Backroom Band... Oh the memories of the place. I took my childer back there the Summer after their (Welsh) father was convicted to lay some ghosts, but I've not been back since 2001
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