Brunch is my favourite meal of the day yet I recently realised that I have not added one single post about this meal on my blog. It’s the one meal which I can completely enjoy and indulge in on the weekends. Breakfast during the week is rushed and involves me multi-tasking whilst eating breakfast. More often than not, I’m standing up doing something else, whilst gulping down my breakfast so I can head out the door in time for work. So come the weekend, I’ll make an effort. I like that it’s ok to have either a sweet or savoury dish (or both) for this meal.




I’ve been making a lot of pancakes recently. I like these orange pancakes so much that I’ve cooked them 3 weekends in a row. It does seem excessive and I should break out of this rut and move onto something new. How many times can you eat pancakes before you get sick of them?

I adapted this recipe from Bill Granger’s infamous hotcakes. A weekend visit to his café Bills was a regular outing when I lived in Sydney. When I moved to London, I started making them myself because I really missed them. They are so fluffy and it's all down to separating the egg whites and whipping them stiff before adding it to the batter. But since then, Bill has opened a couple of cafes in London, which is fantastic. He must have known how many Sydney siders there were living in Sydney who missed his cafes.




The weather has also warmed up recently, which means I've been able to swap my boots for sandals. I even had a small picnic in Hampstead Heath with a friend. The grass wasn't dry enough so we improvised and had the picnic on the bench in the park instead. You can see more pictures of this picnic on Steller here and on the side of my blog.

Speaking of picnics, I was quite excited to see picnic recipe ideas in the Sunday Suppers cookbook. This is my latest cookbook purchase and I look forward to trying out the recipes. It's such a lovely book to own and I particularly love the fabric cover.



And here is the recipe for the orange pancakes. Drizzle them with maple syrup or honey but the berry compote added enough sweetness for me. You could even swap the orange zest for lemon zest. Perhaps next weekend I'll have something else for brunch besides hotcakes.

Makes about 10 pancakes

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE PANCAKES

1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
4 eggs separated
3/4 cup milk
Pinch of salt
Zest of 1 orange
1 tbsp orange blossom essence


FOR THE VANILLA HONEY CREAM

1/2 cup mascarpone
1 cup crème fraîche
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 tbsp honey


FOR THE BERRY COMPOTE

1/2 cup chopped strawberries
1/2 cup raspberries
1/2 cup bluberries
Juice 1 orange
2 tbsp sugar


METHOD

To make the berry compote, combine the strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, sugar and orange juice to a pan. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 10 mins or until the liquid has reduced by half. Take off the heat and allow to cool.

To make the vanilla honey cream, combine the mascarpone, crème fraîche, vanilla essence and honey in a bowl and combine well.

To make the pancakes, sift the flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl. Then add the egg yolks, orange zest, milk, orange blossom essence and whisk to create a wet batter. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed. Fold the egg whites into the batter mixture.

Cook the pancakes in batches, lather on the cream, scoop large spoonfuls of the berry compote and drizzle more honey on top.