Pancakes with crushed peanuts and sugar

I tried to make Ban Chien Kueh/Apam Balik, a pancake filled with crushed roasted peanuts and sugar. I adapted the recipe from "Pasar Malam Delights - Bilingual version", that I purchased from Malaysia for RM15 last year. (Yes, I bought about 10kg worth of cookbooks back home.. Haha.)


I first this pancake in Petaling St, Kuala Lumpur last year. There was this old man selling them. He was quite old, and he was doing this by himself..


It was a hawker food stand. Cleanliness wasn't that up to scratch of course, but they sure were yummy! Though, one time the man coughed into the pan (not purposely, just because he was choking or was sick...). Of course we didn't buy any then.


Unfortunately, I don't have equipment and utensils that look like this. So the distribution of my heating pan wasn't that great.

And unfortunately, my pancakes did not look like this...


This was crispy on the outside. But I just couldn't get mine to be crispy! :( Plus, my other issue was that my peanuts weren't so crushed. Haha.. I smashed them in a bag for a bit, but they seemed to have resisted and stayed as chunks or formed a crumb. -__-

Man chien kueh/ban chien kueh/apam balik/pancake filled with crushed peanuts and sugar
Makes about 12-24 servings depending on if you chop them into 2 or 4.

340g plain flour
70g sugar
3 eggs
425ml water
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp instant dried yeast

300g peanuts, crushed
50g sugar

butter for greasing pan

Your peanuts should be crushed more finely. I really hated the chunky texture..

Mix flour, baking soda, yeast, sugar, egg and water. Allow to rest for 1hr.

Heat a medium sized pan, grease with butter.
Pour in pancake batter. Cook until little holes start appearing. Add peanuts/sugar on top.
Cook for a little while longer.


Flip pancake in half. Press down gently.
Remove from pan, and slice into 2 or 4 pieces. Serve immediately.


Next time, I'll crush those peanuts better. Perhaps, I'll just go buy the crushed ones in the baking isle of the supermarket. Haha..

Blueberry pancakes

I've had a craving for pancakes for the past fortnight. And I finally made some (when I was supposed to be studying..). I used the same recipe as the banana pancakes that I made last time, with some ingredients replaced. This time, I made blueberry pancakes! Now, with these pancakes, I reduced the amount of sugar to compensate for the custard that was to be served with it. So the pancake by itself isn't all that sweet. It tastes best with the custard and extra blueberries. Mmm.. custard and berries!


Blueberry pancakes
Makes about 12

1 tsp cream of tartar
1 2/3 cups milk

2 cups self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup strawberry yoghurt
1 cup frozen blueberries, thawed

extra blueberries, for serving
custard, for serving

Mix cream of tartar with milk. Leave for 5 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, sift flour with baking powder, sugar.
Make a well in the centre and add the milk, egg, yoghurt and vanilla extract.
Mix until well combined.

Let the mixture sit for 10-15mins. Add in blueberries gently.

Grease a pan with little margarine and quickly add 3-4 tbsps of the batter into the pan.
Cook on med-low for a few minutes (watching for bubbles appearing and batter setting, as well as checking the bottom to see if it's burnt), before flipping the pancake over.

The pancakes should rise and feel soft and fluffy.


For the custard, I used 2 tbsp vanilla custard powder, 1 tsp sugar and 1 cup of milk, microwaved. It was a tad thick so I had to stir in extra milk. I think it would have been even better if it was more of a pouring custard consistency though.

Serve the custard warm and throw a few extra blueberries on top. :D

Pancake Parlour

Last time I was at Pancake Parlour, would have been over 10 years ago in primary school. I used to think it was a great place and that the pancakes were yummy. They either used to be better, or I didn't know what a good pancake was..

10 years ahead, and I must say, that the food wasn't that great. And worst of all, it was dirty. Now, how dirty? And what do I mean by dirty? Well.. utensils, plates etc.. weren't all that clean. Even the plates from Food Republic in Malaysia are cleaner than it was here! Yuck. Most diners were old people as well. -__-

$12.50 Fare
Comes with tea, coffee or fizzy drink.


Lunchtime Wild Barramundi fillet.Barramundi fillet balanced atop a potato pancake served with side salad and tartare sauce.

2 Course Fare $17.50


Lunchtime crepe escape. A crepe made with organic flour filled with thinly sliced ham and melting cheese and garnished with grilled pineapple. Served with a side salad.


Dessert size Barvarian Apple Pancakes. Warm spiced apple on two baby pancakes with ice-cream dusted with cinnamon sugar.

You call them baby pancakes? I was quite surprised by the size of it. But.. they were the same size as the pancake beneath my fish! -__-


Lovely? No. I don't think so. The food didn't taste that great, and everything seemed and was oily! I don't like Pancake Parlour. I could save my money and make better pancakes. I'd be much happier that way as well.. Sigh.

Pancake Parlour
Bourke St Mall (down the escalator)
Melbourne

The best pancakes!

I used to not eat breakfast. Throughout primary school and highschool, I would skip breakfast. I just didn't have an appetite so I just couldn't eat. Only up until the past 2-3 years have I eaten breakfast. And up until last year, I've been having it daily. Why? Because I fell in love with cereal. I used to hate eating cereal because it got boring eating the same cereal. So I decided to buy a variety of cereals. And it works. I didn't get sick of cereal. I have quite a few boxes of different cereals waiting to be eaten.

Uncly Tobys Sultana Oat Crisp, Sanitarium Weet-Bix, Sanitarium Light and Tasty Three Berries, Sanitarium Wild Berry Weet-Bix bites, Sanitarium Light and Tasty Apricot, Kelloggs Just Right, Kelloggs All Bran Dual, Kelloggs All Bran, Kelloggs Crunchy Nut, Sanitarium Light and Tasty Macadamia with oat clusters, Kelloggs cornflakes and Kelloggs Crispix to name a few. Okay, that wasn't a few. Haha. But it's not all though. The nutty ones are for my sister and I don't really like them. I'm like the cereal regulator. I'm the one that keeps track of the cereal and buys them. Yes, I buy a lot of cereal. If I could, I'd eat cereal for lunch and dinner as well. I love cereal that much! I'm a cereal killer. But.. I'll discuss my cereal obsession another day.

Sadly, today.. I ditched the cereal. I'm sorry cereal, it's only for one day. I still love you!

Last night, I decided that I wanted to make pancakes. Not just any pancake, but banana pancakes! (There's a lot of bananas in the house! :D)


And these were the best pancakes I've ever made!
So soft.. so delicious!! .. I love you!

Banana yoghurt pancakes
Makes about 12

1 tsp cream of tartar
1 2/3 cups milk

2 cups self raising flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp sugar

2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/3 cup banana and honey yoghurt
1 medium ripe banana, mashed

Mix cream of tartar with milk. Leave for 5 minutes.

In a large mixing bowl, sift flour with baking powder, sugar and cinnamon.
Make a well in the centre and add the milk, egg, yoghurt and vanilla extract.
Mix until well combined and then add the banana and combine again.

Let the mixture sit for 10-15mins. (I didn't leave it for long though, because I was late in making breakfast. I thought it would be brunch, but I ended up eating it for lunch. Haha)

Grease a pan with little margarine and quickly add 3-4 tbsps of the batter into the pan.
Cook on med-low for a few minutes (watching for bubbles appearing and batter setting, as well as checking the bottom to see if it's burnt), before flipping the pancake over.

The pancakes should rise and feel soft and fluffy.


Serve warm, as is..


or with some golden syrup/maple syrup, extra bananas and/or cinnamon. (Or with some vanilla ice-cream if not consuming for breakfast! Whatever you fancy or have on hand really!)


Deliciously soft and fluffy with a yummy banana taste! It is exceptionally good with extra golden syrup and cinnamon! I could have added some extra sliced bananas, but I'd be way too full.


Looks like one gigantic plate of giant-sized pancakes that she looks deviously happy to devour. :P

Okay, and here it is again. The best pancakes so far! Mmmm.


Mmmm. I'm so full right now. :)

Delightfully full.

Hotcakes

Scotch pancakes, hotcakes, whatever you'd like to call them.

These were 2hr+ hotcakes. Haha.. XD

I wanted to try these pancake rings that I got from Daiso. (You could use them to cook some eggs as well..). I got the star one whilst I was in Malaysia and the heart one when I was in Singapore. Made no difference where I was to get them really, as either locations sold both. Well.. they had actually run out of the heart shape at the Malaysian store when I was in there. So I had to get it when I was to Singapore instead. :)


Soft and fluffy hotcakes
Makes 8 (~12cm diameter) hotcakes and 12 smaller heart or star shaped


2 cups self raising flour
1 tsp baking soda

2 cups milk and
1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar
4 tbsp sugar
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mix cream of tartar with milk. Leave for 10mins.

In a mixing bowl, sift flour with baking soda and sugar.
Add in milk, vanilla essence and egg. Mix.
Leave for 10mins.

Sparingly butter/margarine a non-stick pan on first use and after a few uses.

On fairly low heat, add batter to the pan:

For the pancake shapes, grease the rings with some margarine/butter before each use and add 1.5-2 tbsp of batter per ring (should be 1/2-2/3 filled. The hotcake will rise so if you put too much, you'll get overflow).

I started out making these until it got too time consuming as they're quite thick and take a while to cook completely. It took a few attempts before I got the perfect shapes you see in the photos. Haha. The ugly ones were eaten along the way. :P (You need to know that they're cooked before you try and flip them.. thus preventing shape distortion.)


Heart shaped hotcakes.


and..


Star shaped hotcakes.


I only made 12 shaped ones and then moved onto making normal hotcakes without the rings (which were faster and easier to make).

For normal round hotcakes, spoon 3 tbsps of the batter into the centre of the pan. Note that this will take a shorter amount of time to cook as it's thinner.


Serve warm, as is or with any toppings you wish. I had some plain and with apricot jam. :) They're nice and crisp straight off the pan with a soft fluffy eggy inside. Yum~

This one was a star shaped hotcake. It wasn't as soft as the normal shaped ones (below) though. I think it was because it didn't have enough time to rise as I didn't want them to burn.

Normal round hotcake. Soft and fluffy yumminess! :D

This was supposed to be breakfast. But by the time I finished making them, it had turned into lunch. Haha.

Pancakes

My sister wanted to make crepes. But I had been wanting to make pancakes for a while now. So I prevented her from making them, just so I could cook my pancakes. Wahaha. I'll take any opportunity for cooking that I can get! :P So breakfast was on me. 9am pancakes. And after preparing, cooking, eating, taking photos and cleaning.. I was done by 10.30am. :)


Fluffy pancakes served with banana, golden syrup and cinnamon
Makes about 10 (10cm diameter) pancakes

1 cup plain flour
2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 cups buttermilk
OR
1 1/2 cups milk and
1 1/2 tsp cream of tartar

3 tbsp sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla essence

banana
golden syrup
cinnamon

If not using buttermilk, but creating a substitute like I did:
Mix cream of tartar with milk. Leave for 5mins.

In a mixing bowl, sift flour with baking powder and sugar.
Add in milk, vanilla essence and egg. Mix.
Leave for 10mins. The batter should have bubbles at the top.

Sparingly butter a non-stick pan on first use.
On fairly low heat, add 3 tbsp of batter into the pan.
You should start seeing bubbles and holes appearing on the pancake. Wait until the whole pancake is covered with holes and looks like the batter is set. This may take about 1min or so.

(This is how the holes should look on one side of the pancake)

Then gently flip the pancake over (it should be golden brown by now) and cook on the other side for about 30 seconds (or until slightly golden).

Serve with slices of banana, golden syrup and cinnamon, or eat as is by itself.

Cinnamon is my favourite spice at the moment. I love baking with it! :D

My stack of 3 pancakes

With slices of banana and a touch of golden syrup.

And of course, then sprinkled with a lot of cinnamon!

Yum yum!

Last piece of my breakfast. :)

I've never tried using buttermilk before. I know it's quite pricey and I didn't have buttermilk at home, so I tried a buttermilk substitute. I read online that you could substitute buttermilk with milk and cream of tartar. So I tried it. I actually don't know what buttermilk tastes like either, but it's supposed to be sour/tangy?

The pancakes were soft and fluffy, with a slight tang. And I like them! :) They were yummy especially with the banana, golden syrup and cinnamon. I ate a stack of 3 and now I'm very full. Haha. I usually eat cereal for breakfast, so this was quite a change for me. (I have about 10 different varieties of breakfast cereals at home. I like variety and I like my cereal! :P You don't get sick of cereal when you have a variety to choose from each morning.)