At this time of year people all over Germany are celebrating “Fasching” or “Karneval”. Children (and adults) take part in costume parties through the seven days leading up to Ash Wednesday. It is the same festival time made famous by celebrations in Rio de Janeiro and Venice, Italy.
Different countries all over the world have different traditional foods at this time, in Germany it is “Kreppel” or donuts. However our cook has taken advantage of and been inspired by German and regional produce to create these “Mecklenburg” pancakes, more often associated with Shrove Tuesday of this period in England, sometimes known as “pancake” day.
This recipe, influenced by American pancakes features ingredients grown, farmed and produced within 5 miles of Schloss Leizen:
- Honey
- Local free range eggs
- Local raw milk
- Local yoghurt
- Local butter
From Mecklenburg Vorpommern
- Boskopp Apples
From Germany:
- Goldsaft (sugar beet syrup)
- Buckwheat Flour
- Wheat Flour
In our area you sometimes see milk vending machines, our local dairy farm has one, the milk is direct from the farm, very fresh, but raw and unpastuerised, it tastes delicious, however due to not being pasteurised, we don’t serve this milk to our young guests, but we do cook with it like in this recipe.
Interestingly for this recipe we found honey from our local town of Röbel where the bees actually fed on Buckwheat grown locally, one of the grains used to make the two flours we use for these pancakes.
In America and Canada maple syrup is served with pancakes but here in Germany we have “Goldsaft” made from sugar beet, it’s dark and delicious. Locally sugar beet is a very important crop and at the beginning of winter you often see huge piles of the root vegetable at the side of the road awaiting collection by special trucks which take the beets to the sugar refinery further north. Because the syrup is so sweet, we like to serve a few slices of apples with the pancakes, the Boskopp variety is grown locally, often used as a cooking apple, much like the Bramley, we use it raw here because it is nice and sharp and balances the sweetness of the dish.
You will need for (12 Pancakes):
- 300g Plain white wheat flour
- 125g wholemeal buckwheat flour
- pinch of salt
- 7g (half a sachet) baking powder
- 2 free range eggs
- 100g Natural Yoghurt
- 250ml (approx) milk
- vegetable oil for cooking
To serve:
- 100g butter
- 100g natural yoghurt or sour cream
- Honey or
- Sugar beet syrup (Zuckerruben Sirup)
Method:
- Place all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Make a “well” in the centre
- crack the eggs into this well along with the first 100g of yoghurt and half the milk.
- using a whisk mix from the centre outwards adding more milk as required, to create a batter with a heavy cream consistency. You may not use all the milk, or you may require a little more. It’s a good idea to make the batter a littel thick as you can add more milk to thin it later.
- Using a ladle or jug pour enough batter for one pancake into a lighly oiled medium-hot frying pan or skillet. When the edges of the pancake are clearly cooked, flip and cook the other side for a further three minutes. If you have a large pan or flat griddle you can cook more than one at a time. Note: pancake batter must be used immediately to attain light, fluffy pancakes.
- serve hot pancakes singly or in “stacks” of two or three and top with butter, yoghurt or sour cream and honey or syrup. Enjoy Karneval.
Take a look at our movie to see how we make ours:
