Drop Scone Tuesday is upon us!

I absolutely love pancakes. A day where you just have to have pancakes is my dream come true. For about six months we had pancakes every Sunday morning with apple sliced or grated into the batter. Like this lovely recipe. I love adding fruit to the batter as it makes them 'healthy' and then you can drench them in glorious maple syrup. But for the past few months whilst I've been writing and baking up the book there has been nothing but cake in the house. We have lost our appetite for sugar. It's a sad day when you realise that no, you don't feel remotely like having cake or biscuits with your cup of tea. I had to make a new house rule: Nobody is to leave empty handed. If someone calls, give them cake. So the run up to lent and the symbolic pancake making has never been so apt. I am giving up sugar! Hurray! But first I must eat loads of drop scones.

I've always been crepe at making thin pancakes. I can never be mean with anything so the idea of a pancake so light and airy as a crepe just doesn't make sense to me. I want a generous fluffy pancake that holds it's topping and stacks up well. So I usually use a drop scone recipe for my pancakes. I make big drop scones and have them with slices of banana & maple syrup, greek yogurt & honey or like this morning: blueberries. Alot of kids don't like 'stuff' in their pancakes so I made a blueberry compote to have with our gorgeous pancakes.

A Simple Blueberry Compote

2 punnets of blueberries

The juice of a lemon

3 tablespoons of sugar

• Place the lemon juice & sugar in a pan over a gentle heat. Stir to dissolve the sugar.
• Once the syrup is clear turn up the heat and boil for a minute until it thickens.
• Add the blueberries and stir gently to coat the berries. Leave to simmer for a minute just until the berries look like they are about to burst.
• Pour into a bowl and serve with the pancakes

A lovely drop scone recipe from Mark Hix.

I made my pancakes with a mixture of duck and hen eggs. Ever since we had to send our ducks & hens to Leahys Farm because of Bo and her overactive 'prey drive' I really miss not having real eggs. Luckily my parents have very productive hens that appear to even pencil in the date on their own eggs. The new project for Spring is to build a safe and secure hen coop that keeps birds in and Bo/foxes/bears out. I can't wait and am already boring the ear off a very talented carpenter that has agreed to build it. Yay!

Happy Pancake Day!

Lilly x