It being Pancake Tuesday, aka Shrove Tuesday, it’s time for the obligatory pancake-related post.

Traditionally, eggs, butter and indeed milk were given up for lent, and so a giant pancake orgy took place the day before Ash Wednesday to use said ingredients up. While Ireland is growing more secular by the day, we will still happily keep this annual celebration going. Irish pancakes are like a thick crepe, rather than American style. Usually about 15-20 cm across, largely depending on the size of the frying pan.

For this evening, I broke out “Isa Does It” by Isa Chandra Moscowitz. I’ve used a few recipes in this book before. Unlike a lot of vegan cookbooks on the market, this one uses simple, real ingredients and not a whole load of brand name products, or ingredients that you can only find in The States. The biggest pain in the butt with the book is that everything’s in cups, which means googling conversions to grams before starting (particularly for baked goods, to get the chemistry right).

Carrot cake pancakes. Fluffy, thick, scented with vanilla and cinnamon and drizzled with maple syrup (ha! Who am I kidding? The term “liberally doused” was invented for such stacks of pancakes!).

Normally I’d break out the magimix for grating carrot, as the results are lovely and uniform, plus there’s the fun of shoving carrots down the chute. I was too lazy for the washing up today though, and there’s not massive amounts of carrot involved (a cup, grated) so I used my coarse microplane grater instead. Isa is careful to mention the fineness needed here, and the grater was perfect – the carrot needs to be able to cook in the amount of time the batter is on the pan. No crunchy or al dente bits need apply.

I love my little nutmeg mill!

While this was slightly more faffing about than my standard, non-vegan pancake recipe, it was quick to put together. I didn’t have ground clove, so I left it out, and I used vanilla soy milk as the leftovers will go in my morning coffee for the rest of the week.

Mine were more oval than round, as I wanted to cook two medium sized pancakes at a time rather than one huge one. I can live with that though.

These were absolutely delicious. You could even serve these to people who normally roll their eyes and make comments about “salad is what my food eats” and they wouldn’t be a bit the wiser. Yum. Two hearty thumbs up.

Now I just need to find the next excuse to make them again!