When we think about pancakes, we think about breakfast. However, in Crete, pancakes are not exactly what we know in North America. Pancakes are small fried bits of batter and topped with a syrup made from honey -- not maple. So, why are they called pancakes? We believe that it is because of the shape. These are crispy and chewy little discs with a soft centre and delicious toppings. You have to eat these when they are hot or warm, and we believe they will not last longer than that, anyway!
For this recipe, you will need the following:
2-3 cups water
1 TBSP oil
1 TBSP lemon juice or orange juice
1 tsp salt
4 cups flour
honey and sesame seeds OR cinnamon and powdered sugar as needed for the topping
Pour the flour and the salt into a bowl and combine them well. Make sure the salt is fully distributed throughout the flour. Having two ingredients that are white in colour, and a mixing bowl that is white, makes for difficult photography. But, it gets better!
Make a well in the centre of the flour. Into that well, add the oil and lemon (or orange) juice. Mix these together well. The mixture will start to look like the beginnings of a pie crust, with little crumbles in the flour. Then, you need to start adding the water, cup by cup to make a thin batter.
A thin batter will fall off a spoon easily, will not hold any shape, and will pour as easily as mustard. There may be some lumps in your batter. These may disappear as the batter sits, so do not worry.
Have ready a deep pot with oil heating. These pancakes are deep fried. The oil should be hot, but not fully boiling.
With a large soup spoon, drop the batter spoonful by spoonful into the hot oil. You have to make sure that the spoonfuls do not touch each other in the oil. Here is why: When you drop the batter into the oil, it sinks to the bottom of the pot. Then, as the pancake cooks, it will start to rise to the top of the oil. As soon as it floats to the top, turn it over to get a little colour on the second side of the pancake. The hardest part about making these is achieving the round shape when you drop the batter into the hot oil. After four or five tries, we got it! Then, we realized it was not difficult at all.
When the pancakes are light and golden in colour, floating at the top of the oil, remove them and place them onto a paper towel for a moment to collect any extra oil. But, while they are still hot, put them in the clean dish (off the paper towels) and squirt honey all over the pancakes. Then, sprinkle sesame seeds over the tops. The sesame will stick to the honey. Serve warm.
The other topping for these, after having fried the pancakes, placed them on paper towels to drain some excess oils, you can put them in a bowl or dish and sprinkle cinnamon and icing sugar on top. A neighbour of ours told me that she has a zipper-seal bag with cinnamon and sugar combined, and puts her hot pancakes into the zipper bag, shakes them in the cinnamon-sugar, and then, puts them on a serving plate. She tells me that her grandchildren call them Yiayia's doughnuts! Who needs a doughnut shop when we have Yiayiades in the world!
We tasted both the honey/sesame topping and the cinnamon/powdered sugar topping. Both were fantastic! The interesting thing about these pancakes is that the dough, itself, is a little salty -- not sweet at all. The different toppings made these pancakes taste like two completely different treats. The traditional topping is the honey/sesame, but the cinnamon/sugar is a good back-up plan if ever you do not have the other ingredients.
"The love of money is (and is called) the root of all evils, because it produces hatred, thefts, envy,
separations, enmities, storms, remembrance of wrong, hard-heartedness, murders."
St. John of Climacus (From the Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 17, Section 14)
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