Soon, I will tell you about the tragically anticlimactic real-life events that inspired this post, but let me first just say that this batter recipe gives great results every single time. You simply can’t go wrong with it. The mixture is unsweetened, which means you can top these thin pancakes with both savoury (gorgonzola is particularly good) and sweet things (sprinkle with lemon juice, dust with powdered sugar). The possibilities are endless, really.

About those real life events…Well, my original plan was to make South-East Asian coconut crêpes, with coconut milk, rice flour, egg and grated coconut. Sounds like a good idea, right? Wrong. I had been building anticipation for weeks, waiting for the right moment to make them and when I finally decided to go for it, I realised I didn’t have enough eggs. So, I hopped on my bike, rode to the supermarket like a madwoman, returned, and realised I bought a bunch of other things I needed…but no eggs.  At this point, I was so keen to get started, I couldn’t even bother to unlock my bike again, so I just ran.  Yes, I was burning calories like crazy, but it didn’t matter, because soon I would have a big plate full of sugary, coconutty goodness to make up for it.

It’s not that we didn’t try, but the batter refused to shape itself into pancakes, no matter what we did. It stuck to the pan, it tore apart, it refused to set. The best thing we could manage was a heap of soggy, coconut-flavoured scraps.  

So how did we rise above it, in the end? Well, we soon forgot our petty problems when we witnessed a truly majestic flock of starlings settling in a tree and literally turning the sky black when they left for another. Also, it so happened that my mother had recently given me the recipe for the thin pancakes, or flensjes, she always used to make. The trick is to make them as thin as possible and eat them straight out of the pan, when their paper thin edges are still nice and crispy.

 

Ingredients (for 2 people, about 10 small thin crêpes)

110g plain flour

pinch of salt

2 eggs

200 ml milk

75 ml water

• mix all the ingredients to form a smooth batter without any lumps.
• heat a little butter in a flat frying pan and fry them nice and golden brown on both sides.