Pancakes With Blueberries & Cream

This thin pancake recipe (like the continental crêpe) has a really great blueberry sauce, which is flavoured with sloe gin (a gin steeped in sloe berries). The blueberry sauce is slightly sweet, which is balanced nicely by the pancakes and the cream. One of the best features of this dish is the colour of the sauce, a deep purple; drizzle it over the pancakes and the plate, adding a few whole blueberries, which burst their flavour into the mouth. This is quite a quick recipe to make and the batter and blueberry sauce can be made up well in advance.

Pancakes With Blueberries & Cream Recipe

Serves 4 people.

Recipe Ingredients:

For the pancakes

• 125g plain flour
• 15g caster sugar
• pinch salt
• 2 medium free-range eggs
• 325ml milk
• 50ml double (heavy) cream
• 1 tbsp sloe gin
• 20g butter – for frying

For the blueberry sauce

• 300g blueberries
• 70g sugar
• 1 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp sloe gin

For The Cream

• 300ml double (heavy) cream

Recipe Method

For the pancakes (crêpes): whisk the flour, sugar, salt, eggs and a third of the milk in a bowl – use a whisk to get this into a smooth silky batter. Gradually stir in the rest of the the milk and all of the cream – this thins the batter. Now leave the batter to rest, covered, in a warm place for about an hour. This allows the flour to absorb the milk and become a much smoother, creamier batter. Just before cooking, stir in the sloe gin and give the batter a good whisk to enliven it

Brush a small 20cm (8 inch) frying pan with a little butter and place over a medium heat. Add a ladleful of the batter into the centre of the frying pan and then tilt the pan to and fro to cover the base thinly; cook the pancake for only a minute each side. Transfer each of them to a warm plate and repeat, stacking the pancakes up, until all of the batter has been used. You can keep them warm in a low oven when made.

For the blueberry sauce: Reserve half of the blueberries for later. Add the sugar to a saucepan and add 1 tablespoon of the sloe gin. Heat the sugar until it starts to dissolve, then stir in half of the blueberries, and as they start to cook use a masher (or the back of a fork) to break them up. Add the other 2 tablespoons of sloe gin and bring this slowly up to the boil. Reduce the liquid by half, then turn the heat down and stir in the remaining blueberries. Stir this gently to keep the just added blueberries whole. After three minutes on a low heat turn off the heat and stir in the butter, a little at a time.

For the cream: in a mixing bowl pour in the cream. Whip the cream to a stiff, thick, consistency but be careful not to over whip and let the cream collapse.

To serve the pancakes: Place two pancakes on a plate, fold each one in half, then in half again. Spoon over the blueberry sauce, drizzle the sauce over the pancakes and plate, and add a few of the whole blueberries. Garnish with a spoonful of whipped cream.