Ricotta pikelets

[redsnake05]

Pikelets are a bit of an Antipodean thing. Growing up, my family took their pikelets very seriously. I don't often make them now, but, if I do, it is definitely serious business. For those of you not from here, you might call pikelets silver dollar pancakes, drop scones or griddle cakes. This is the best recipe I have come across.

Makes: about 18 - 24, depending on size.

2 cups self-raising flour
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1 cup ricotta
1 1/4 cups buttermilk

Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl and make a well in the centre.

Mix together the wet ingredients thoroughly.

Slowly add wet ingredients to dry as you whisk or beat with a fork. Try to avoid lumps by slowly incorporating the dry ingredients into the wet around the edges. Once combined, whisk for another minute or so and set to one side. It should be a thick batter that will drizzle off a spoon easily.

At this point, many people leave the batter to sit. I prefer to leave the batter for an hour or more, as one does with yorkshire puddings, but you can cook it immediately and they will still be delicious.

Heat a heavy pan or electric frypan to a medium heat. Add butter or oil. It should be hot enough to sizzle. Give the batter a very quick stir (add just a little milk if it appears to have thickened up). Use a ladle, spoon or tea cup to pour batter into the pan into small circles (I like mine about 6 - 7 cm (2 1/4 - 2 1/2 inches) across). Cook for about two minutes, or until small bubbles form on the top. If the bottom scorches before the bubbles form, turn the heat down. If bubbles haven't formed and the bottom is pale and wan after two minutes, turn the heat up.

Turn the pikelets over and cook on the other side for another two minutes. Place a clean tea towel on a plate and place the cooked pikelets on this. Fold the other end of the tea towel up over the pikelets. Keep warm in a very low oven if desired. Wipe out the pan with a clean paper towel and start again.

Serve as you cook, or keep them warm to serve straight after cooking, or allow to cool and eat cold.

In my family, pikelets were served hot with butter and either maple syrup or golden syrup. The pikelets were stacked up about four high and the syrup drizzled on, then cut and eaten with a knife and fork. If served cold, they were served with jam and cream, rather like scones.

Since then, I have rather branched out (not, however, if cooking them for my mother). Here are some suggestions:

Add mashed banana to the batter and serve with caramel sauce
Add fresh berries and lemon zest to the batter and serve with lemon syrup and cream
Serve with berry and cinnamon compote (or orange and clove/cardamom, or any compote, really) and cream or creme fraiche
Squeeze a lemon over and sprinkle with sugar
Add sultanas (raisins) and chai spice mix to the batter

I do not, personally, like savoury toppings on my pikelets, but those of my friends who do assure me that they make an ideal vehicle for any topping you might routinely put on crackers.

Comments

[darkemeralds]

The ricotta and buttermilk must give these a lovely rich flavor! They sound delicious.

[redsnake05]

They are definitely company pikelets! I think the buttermilk, particularly, gives them a great taste.

[st_aurafina]

These look so good! Just wondering - on the chance you're an Australian-antipodean - where you find your buttermilk? I don't know if my Woolworths is just useless, or if I'm looking in the wrong place, but I've never been able to find it. (And usually just sour some milk with lemon juice, but it's not the same.)

[redsnake05]

I am an Antipodean of the New Zealand flavour, I am afraid, and I buy buttermilk in the dairy section at my local supermarket. It's kept with the cream, if that helps (I invariably look first with the sour cream and yoghurt, but no, it's with the cream). I hope you find a reliable source soon!

[st_aurafina]

Thanks! I'll have a hunt around the cream section and see what I can find!

[starfleetbrat]

They usually have it in the dairy section here in Australia. Woolworths have it on their online ordering site, as do coles if that helps.

But if you can't find it you can make your own. There is a recipe here:
http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-a-quick-easy-buttermilk-substitute-cooking-lessons-from-the-kitchn-185757

But you can also do it by making your own butter from cream:
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Butter-With-a-Food-Processor-in-Two-Minutes

You just squeeze the buttermilk out as you make the butter!

[st_aurafina]

Thanks! I'm going to look more carefully in the dairy section. I'm rural, so my Woolies is a bit eccentric.

[killing_rose]

If you can't find buttermilk, you can make it using either vinegar or lemon juice as a souring agent. (E.G. how Yuletide Cell makes dairy-free buttermilk.)

[monanotlisa]

Oh my, have never seen this before but know for a fact most Germans would love this: sweet dairy and fried! (I love dairy, but I have never liked fried things, from toddlerhood to now.)

[redsnake05]

Sweet dairy and fried is pretty much its own major food group. I do not blame Germans at all.

If you don't mind me asking, is it the crisp or the oil or both (neither) that you don't like with fried foods? I can see how both would be off-putting, especially if imprinted on at an early age.

[monanotlisa]

Sweet dairy and fried is pretty much its own major food group.

Heh.

I'm not entirely sure what I dislike about it: It's not the fat as such, for I will eat nutella or foie gras straight from the jar, no questions asked. And I do love crispy things, like the skin off a crispy duck straight from the oven, or the crust on an alas now gluten-free bread.

I do think it may be the taste? In Germany they fry Berliners, Mutzen, and the like in God knows how old oil; I'm super-sensitive to any "off" kind of taste. Cheap olive oil makes me wince, as do wines that aren't expertly balanced; I can tell if there was one single moldy raspberry in the batch that made my smoothie -- I will spit it out and not drink it...

[redsnake05]

Ah, yes, there is nothing quite as gross as old oil. That's one of the reasons I wipe out the pan with a paper towel between each batch, because I think frying in butter, especially, requires a great deal of attention to freshness and a total absence of black crunchy bits in the butter. I can understand being put off by that kind of taste.

[monanotlisa]

I think frying in butter, especially, requires a great deal of attention to freshness and a total absence of black crunchy bits in the butter

Yes!

I do like butter, adore it in fact, but the smoking point is so low you have to pay great attention to it, and the medium of heating.

There are, of course, tasty fried things I've eaten; seems they've just not come to impress me all that much, or overpower the standard experience.

[monanotlisa]

(Obviously, I'm annoying my mother, father, and friends, but goshdarn if I can't impress my dates during blind wine tastings. ;)

[cirque]

Pikelets are pretty much an everyday food here in the UK... I'm surprised to hear they're not as popular elsewhere!

[redsnake05]

Ah, really? I ask because my English colleague (Yorkshire-born, then lived in Norfolk) had never heard of them before she came here. She called them something else, but I can't remember the particular word.

[cirque]

Did she call them crumpets? That's the word I mostly know them by.

I'm from further south than Yorkshire so maybe it's a regional thing? Strange. I often have them with jam but I know people here mostly have them with butter.

[redsnake05]

Definitely not crumpets, because she recognised what we call crumpets as the real deal (a yeasted batter, cooked in rings so it's brown on the bottom with open holes on top). She may just have said pancakes, which is the word we would use if they were thinner and much larger.

Ah, English, you are so peculiar *heaves a satisfied sigh*

Personally, I prefer jam with my pikelets too if they're cold; maybe butter and jam.

[geeksdoitbetter]

~swoon~

i totally had pancakes on my cooking calendar for next week

have now bumped it up to pikelets of awesome, thank you!

[redsnake05]

I hope they are super delicious for you.