Raspberry Hotcakes with Goats curd
I garnished mine with toasted pepitas and bee pollen for crunch and some basil flowers for an interesting hit of flavour.
Do you ever look at a menu and bubble with excitement over the titillating choices on offer? And have that greedy “there’s so many things, but I can only order one?” feeling?
This was my dilemma when having breakfast recently at BARRY. cafe in Northcote, Victoria. There were so many choices and not enough time to enjoy them on my limited interstate visit.
I ordered the poached eggs hollandaise, a normally pedestrian breakfast menu item. But this was made interesting with the hollandaise made on apple cider and accompanying shredded smoked pork hock instead of bacon. It was so yummy and I ate it up before I took a picture!
Despite not having a sweet tooth, my sister surprised me by ordering the blackberry hotcakes with hazelnuts. I managed to refrain from drooling over them, taking little comfort, in that they were full of sugar and wheat and cow juice! But the image has stayed firmly in my mind and was ready to be replicated when I got back home.
Hotcakes are a regional name for pancakes, and pancakes are probably the oldest and most common form of cereal food eaten in the world. It is amazing how the pancake’s shape and structure varies worldwide.
Think about: pancakes, crepes, dosai, injera, okonomyaki, crumpets, bánh xèo, poffertjes, blini, pikelets, Yorkshire pudding, drop-scones, griddlecakes, flapjacks, jonny-cakes, silver dollars, waffles! They are all made with a batter on a grill. And this list doesn’t include ones I cannot pronounciate! Did you know that the Hungarian pancake name; Palatschinke is derived from the Latin placenta!
Growing up in Australia, I knew the names of pikelets & crepes. In the 80’s my mum went through a French crepe suzette phase which was highly enjoyable for us kids! We would make pikelets on a Saturday afternoon and lather them with butter & jam, something which I passed on to my kids for an after school treat.
The word “hotcakes” became better known after Sydney chef, Bill Granger, from Bills Kitchen put his infamous ricotta hotcakes with honeycomb butter on his breakfast menu. I did have the satisfaction of trying them, pre-paleo life and they certainly deserve their reputation. Using ricotta in a batter lends a lightness to the pancake much akin to using buttermilk. The acid in the cheese reacts with the leavening agent (baking powder) which adds volume.
In my mind, pancakes are made on a thick batter, and while not cooked thin, they are not thick and spongy like the pancakes you might get at the Pancake Parlour. Crepes are paper-thin and flavoured with brandy. And hotcakes are made on cheese and are incorporated with eggs, that have been separated and whites beaten fluffy.
Here is my rendition of that amazing breakfast at BARRY. I have substituted the ricotta for goats curd which works beautifully – they are light & fluffy. I have used buckwheat and tapioca to keep it gluten-free and used pepitas for a nut-free crunch. I think you might find this is amazing too!!
clevercook 