It’s pancake day tomorrow! And I am much more excited about this than I should be, but, given that my days tend to revolve around food, any occasion involving things to eat is a good one. I usually make crepes on pancake day, but I’ve been playing around recently with scotch pancakes and they’re just so yummy. You don’t have to have the butterscotch apples with them, but I recommend it!

On a related note, this year for lent I’ve decided to go dairy-free. I’ll still be having eggs, but I’ll be avoiding milk, butter(!), cheese(!!) and all the rest. I have enough of a recipe backlog that lots will still be the usual vegetarian, but I’ll be trying lots of new dairy-free and vegan cooking, so if there’s anything that works well I’ll post that, too.

Ingredients (makes 12):
Scotch Pancakes:
– 125g self-raising flour
– 1tsp baking powder
– 50g granulated sugar
– 1 egg
– 125ml semi-skimmed milk
– 2tbsp melted butter

Butterscotch Apples:
– 2 dessert apples
– 50g butter
– 50g soft brown sugar
– 50g golden syrup
– 1tsp vanilla extract
– juice of half a large lemon (about 20ml)
– 50ml double cream

1. Start by making the pancakes – in a large mixing bowl, stir together the dry ingredients. Slowly whisk in the egg, milk and melted butter, until you have a smooth and runny batter.

2. Heat a large frying pan, then add a knob of butter. The pan should be warm enough that the butter sizzles. Spoon tablespoons of your batter into the pan (I did three at a time, but it depends on the size of your frying pan). After a minute or so lots of little bubbles will form, and you can flip them over. Cook for a further minute, then transfer to a plate and cover with tin foil while you make the rest.

3. While your pancakes are cooking, peel and core your apples. Put them in a small saucepan along with the butter, sugar, golden syrup and vanilla, and heat until the butter has melted. Turn up the heat slightly to bring the pan to a gentle simmer, then let it do it’s own thing for 10 minutes.

4. Remove the saucepan from the heat and stir in the cream and lemon juice. Serve drizzled over your hot pancakes.