Pancakes with Sour Cherries

Sour cherries & sweet cherries  are related but in Polish they have completely different names.

• Prunus cerasus  are wiśnie  –  sour cherries also known as morello cherries
• Prunus avium are czereśnie –  sweet cherries.
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• Prunus cerasus originated in the Iranian plateau & Eastern Europe.
• They feature greatly in Polish cooking.

United Nations Annual crop production figures for sour cherries in 2014:

1. Russia 198,000 tonnes
2. Ukraine 182,880 tonnes
3. Turkey 182,577 tonnes
4. Poland 176,545  tonnes
5. USA 137,983 tonnes

• For this recipe fresh sour cherries would have to be cooked with some sugar but  here in England I have never seen fresh sour cherries for sale so I use bottled ones.
• Some brands still have the stones in them so you will have to stone them first.

Ingredients – Sour Cherry Sauce

• Jar of part jar of sour cherries
• 4 cloves
• Small stick of cinnamon
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of potato or cornflour

Method

• Put the cherries and the juice into a saucepan.
• Add the cloves and cinnamon.
• Simmer gently for around 10 minutes.
• Leave to cool.
• Remove the spices.
• Mix the potato or cornflour with a little of the juice.
• Stir this into the cherries.
• Bring up to the boil, stirring often.
• The sauce should thicken.
• Leave on a low heat.

Plate is La Prune by Jet for Ter Steege in The Netherlands.

I have written lots of tips for The Perfect Pancake – below is a reminder of the basic recipe.

Ingredients – Pancakes

• 200g plain flour
• 2 eggs
• 200 ml milk (full or semi-skimmed)
• 200 ml water
• pinch of salt

This amount makes around 8 pancakes – in my 20cm pancake pan.

• I remember this recipe as it is all the 2’s for ease
• Depending on the flour and the size of the eggs,
• You might not use all the milk & water mixture
• or sometimes you might just need a little more.

Method – Pancake

• Beat the eggs and add then them first to the sifted flour.
• Add the milk mixture to the egg and flour mix until you have a batter the consistency of pouring cream.
• Leave the batter to stand for at least 1 hour in which time it will thicken, then add a little more liquid.
• Use a special thin pan which you use just for pancakes, mine has a base diameter of 20 cm and is made of steel, once seasoned, just wipe it clean between uses with kitchen roll – never scour it or use detergent.
• Work out how much batter you need for a pancake and find a measure which will then give you a consistent amount – I use a small ladle which holds 45ml.
• Have a dish of melted butter or margarine and sunflower oil for frying so you can add just enough and tip some back if needed.
• Using the ladle pour the mixture into the pan.
• Tilt the pan so that the mixture covers the surface completely and evenly.
• Cook the pancakes on one side and turn them over.
• You can make them up one by one –
• or stack then up with a piece of greaseproof paper in between them.
• You can do this and leave then for later use.
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• Spread some of the cherries and sauce onto a pancake.
• Pancakes with sweet fillings are normally folded into triangles – fan -shaped  by folding the pancake into half and half again.
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• Dust with icing sugar to serve.
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• You can make the filled pancakes in advance prior to dusting them with icing sugar and then heat them up on both sides – using the pancake pan again – maybe with the addition of a little butter.
• Then dust them with icing sugar.