Salted Caramel Pancakes

Apologies for my absence from the airwaves recently, being a finalist is more difficult and time-consuming than I had imagined, thankfully I made it out without killing myself or anyone else, and retaining my sanity.

This is a fantastic dish, and though it tastes luxuriously decadent it is woefully simple. I'm absurdly proud of having made this without burning myself which is a tragically common occurrence when making caramel. You can adjust the quantities of salt if you wish for it to be more or less salty, I use french fleur-de-sel for this dish, which is traditional in France. Fleur-de-sel is harvested in Guérande, in Brittany, and it is formed when moving water evaporates leaving salt crystals with a characteristic floral shape. If you can't find these then sea salt flakes can be used.

Start by whisking all your pancake ingredients together in a large glass bowl, cover it with a tea towel and leave it to rest while you make your caramel sauce.

For the sauce, place the soft brown sugar in a saucepan and heat over a high heat stirring with a wooden spoon until the sugar has melted to a pale brown amber, continue to heat, stirring until you have reached your desired darkness, the darker the caramel the more bitter it will be, take care that the sugar doesn't burn. Add the cubed butter and stir it into the sugar until it melts.

The sugar and the butter will start to separate, use a whisk to combine them until smooth and bubbling, remove from the heat and add the heavy cream, it will bubble ferociously, return the pan to the heat and whisk it until smooth. Some of the sugar may resolidify, heat it for a few minutes on high until it has all melted and is smooth. Leave it to cool then add the salt and mix. When it has cooled further pour it into a sauce boat.

Cook your pancakes, heat a little vegetable oil in a large heavy-based frying pan and add a ladleful of the pancake batter, cook it for a few minutes on each side, flipping it with a spatula.

Serve the pancakes folded and topped with lashings of the salted caramel sauce.

ingredients:

for the pancakes
100g plain flour
1 large egg
300ml milk
sunflower oil for frying

for the sauce
100g soft muscovado sugar
45g cubed unsalted butter
100ml single cream
1/2 tbsp fleur de sel de Guérande

Banana Pancakes

Yes, I too was sceptical. These sound disgusting and bizarre, but believe it or not they do actually make something resembling pancakes in style and in taste. I was inspired to create this recipe when I saw on snapchat that my friend and colleague Zoe had made something similar, and they looked so good, so I made my own!

To start chop a banana roughly into a bowl, mash the banana using a fork until it is smooth and without chunks, whisk an egg and add it to the banana along with a teaspoonful of vanilla and half a teaspoon of baking powder. Mix together until smooth. At this point you can add pretty much anything you want, be it honey or chocolate chips or berries. You can also double up on the quantity if you wish to make a larger batch, the amount used here will make enough for one.

Heat a small knob of butter in a skillet or griddle, and then add a ladleful of batter when it is hot, cook it until the edges of the pancake start to frill and the top resembles set jelly, check that the bottom has browned, flip it over and cook the other side until brown and firm. Place on a hot plate and cook the rest of the batter, if you are cooking a large batch you can keep the pancakes warm in a low oven. Serve in a stack with syrup.

ingredients

1 banana
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla
butter

Ultimate French Toast

Breakfast wise, this weekend was a very good weekend, saturday commenced in a most civilized manner, with a full english (thankfully not cooked by me) and a mimosa in the garden. On sunday, I was left to my own devices, and some eggs and bread left over from saturday's fry up, along with some creme fraiche bought for last week's carbonara led to the creation of some of the best french toast I've ever eaten.

Start by cracking an egg into a glass bowl, this recipe will make enough for either two thin slices of bread, or for one doorstep slice. To the egg add 2 tablespoons of creme fraiche and a tablespoon of icing sugar, and beat with a fork to combine until the mixture is smooth and no lumps of creme fraiche are visible.

To the eggy mixture add half a teaspoon of vanilla extract, a teaspoon of cinnamon and half a teaspoon of nutmeg, stir to combine. Place the bread on a small plate, and pour over the egg mixture, drain off the excess and turn over the bread so that both sides are covered in the mixture.

Heat a knob of butter in a small skillet to a medium high heat, and gently place the soggy bread in the pan, cook it for a few minutes and then flip it, until it is browned of both sides, and serve, with syrup.

ingredients

1 egg
2 tablespoons creme fraiche
1 tablespoon icing sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 knob butter

Coffee, my beloved

I have many, many vices, which I won't enumerate here, but one of my greatest vices is coffee. Living in England, where a good cup of coffee is about as rare as the white stag or the black rhino is a challenge, now I am generally not a food snob, I love nothing more than a pub lunch or a takeaway, but when it comes to coffee, I am a braggart, I abhor instant coffee, I'd rather just drink tea than subject myself to a mug of tasteless watery nescafe.

I also loathe instant espresso machines. Whilst placing a capsule into a machine may be incredibly convenient, this doesn't make up for it being awful for the environment, and for it lacking the refinement of using real coffee.

I do, if I'm at my parent's home in Paris, like to use whole beans, and grind them myself using a peugeot coffee grinder my mother received as a christmas present from my father a few years ago. Yes it is hard work grinding the coffee beans by hand, and it isn't something that you can do every day, but on the occasions when you have time, boy is it worth it.

For some people, coffee is just a means to a highly caffeinated end, but for me, coffee is a ritual, and thus the choice of coffee beans is also highly important, and for me the best coffee comes from guatemala. I am generally fonder of coffee from the americas than of african coffee, which tends to be rather harsh and overly bitter. Guatemalan coffee is rounder and richer than kenyan or ethiopian coffee, and the bitterness isn't overwhelming.

I also feel that what you use to make your coffee is important. A few years ago I was given an italian espresso machine, you fill the bottom with water and the middle with coffee, the water boils and the pressure pushes it up through the coffee making a delicious espresso.

If I am in search of a longer coffee then I am also partial to a cafetiere or even a drip coffee, which makes a more protracted, and a slower coffee. I also can't abide by drinking coffee out of a mug, and always use a small espresso cup.

Though it might seem like my obsession is fairly extreme, coffee is possibly one of the only things of which I actually consider myself a connoisseur. So while this article might seem rather pretentious and entirely lacking in introspection, I am well aware that I take my caffeinated vice a little too seriously.

Fried Peanut Butter and Banana Sandwich

This is truly one of my favorite breakfast recipes, it's gloriously simple and fantastically cheap, and it takes mere minutes to make. This dish was a favorite of Elvis Presley's, who would eat these sandwiches as a midnight snack, cooked by his mother in bacon fat, my version is a rather more svelte.

There are many variations on this sandwich, some of which include bacon, some butter the bread first, and some even include honey. This version is as simple as it can possibly be, using only three ingredients, and not even using any cooking fat, just a griddle to create picturesque smoky lines.

Take two slices of industrial packaged bread, I find white works best, and spread them both with peanut butter. The kind of peanut butter you choose depends on your preference, but I prefer the unsweetened crunchy kind. You can use smooth if you prefer, but whichever you choose it mustn't be too runny, otherwise the peanut butter will drip out when you try to cook it.

Peel a banana and mash it on a board, and then add it to one of the slices of bread, on top of the peanut butter, place the other slice of bread on top, peanut butter side down. Place the sandwich on a hot griddle, and leave it until the bread is crunchy on the outside, and flip it, cooking until the sandwich is warm through and cooked on the other side.

ingredients

2 slices white bread
crunchy peanut butter
1 banana