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Monday 26 December 2011

A spot of morning tea, anyone?

 

Whatever happened to having people around for morning tea?  While I will bake scones or biscuits if I have friends or family coming to my house, I very rarely make a date specifically for 'morning tea'.  How terribly sad to have lost something so civilised. Having a situation to be rectified, I decided to rekindle my romance with an old and underestimated favourite: the pikelet.  In my experience (and vast this experience is) it is very possible for the humble ol' pikelet to go terribly wrong and how this happens, I will never understand (perhaps the over-reliance on bicarbonate of soda to provide adequate 'fluff').  These little friends were a staple in my household growing up.  Mum would often help us make pikelets for afternoon tea and I have lovely memories of eating more than I ever made!  Our recipe for pikelets was very simple: a chunk of self raising flour, an egg (or two, maybe), a whole lot of vanilla extract and milk added by feel.  They always turned out and must have been ok because they rarely had time to cool before being lathered in sticky strawberry jam and gobbled up.


I must admit that this morning, the gorgeous grande dame of the kitchen, Margaret Fulton provided my recipe as I wanted my pikelets to be beautifully authentic to morning teas of a bygone era.  This meant the addition of a little melted butter and half/half milk and buttermilk.  I did deviate by sneaking in some lovely vanilla.  Keeping this traditional, there was no low-fat in sight and this included the bubbly butter in the bottom of the frypan. After five minutes of mixing and ten minutes flipping, I had a plate full of fluffy, cakey, and very homemade looking pikelets.  The cream was whipped and the kettle boiled....and my hunky husband had the entire batch finished off within the time it took me to cook them.
(Well, except for the two I ate in between flips.)

F. x

1 comment:

  1. I still make those 'by feel' pikelets. They are one of the simplest, but most satisfying morning/afternoon tea treats of all time! And the best way to eat them is hot off the pan, dripping with strawberry jam! (Of course your Dad always butters first!) Mutti x

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