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Scotch pancakes/drop scones

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Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Sloe-Gin » Thu Dec 30, 2021 6:30 pm

My nain used to make these for 'high tea' on Sundays. They were served crispy golden brown, with lashings of butter and syrup.
I have a hankering to make them with some cream cheese and smoked salmon, maybe some prawns...
Savoury veg/vegan accompaniments?

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Renee » Thu Dec 30, 2021 10:24 pm

I used to make those occasionally, but not for a long time now. A smoked salmon and cream cheese topping will be lovely. Are they similar to blinis?

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Stokey Sue » Fri Dec 31, 2021 12:15 am

I tend to treat Scotch pancakes or drop scones as sweet, like American breakfast pancakes, but there’s no reason they have to be as long as they aren’t loaded with sugar and vanilla or cinnamon
For savoury I have more often make one based on potato, though not for ages

Something like this, though I separate the eggs and fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites at the end if I can be bothered
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/potato-pancakes

Small ones are really good topped with smoked salmon etc

Blini are yeast leavened, so slightly more of a fiddle

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Earthmaiden » Fri Dec 31, 2021 12:34 am

My granny used to make lovely drop scones. I did too but haven't for years.
I seem to remember them always being eaten warm.

Savoury toppings would be nice and vegan is food for thought. Some of the nut butters available would be nice and any kind of creamy dip made with whipped silken tofu perhaps - there must be artichoke dips made to vegan specifications. I like the look of this miso tofu as a base for a dip/spread https://www.waitrose.com/home/recipes/r ... dmint.html
Beetroot with horseradish and dairy free yogurt would work.

I'll stick with smoked salmon and cream cheese or mashed egg mayonnaise maybe!

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Gillthepainter » Fri Dec 31, 2021 9:11 am

I was brought up on them, my mum was from Dundee, and an excellent baker.
We 5 kids had them plain, eating them as fast as my mum would make them.

When I took Tony to the Highlands it was his favourite "cake" with his cup of tea in the cafes.

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby northleedsbhoy » Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:23 am

I make these regularly and as Stokey Sue said they are sweet and contain sugar, which helps them rise although these days I have to use powdered sweetener.

I cook them the way my mum and gran taught me and that is s/r flour, egg, full fat milk and sugar. I guess the quantities and add them until I get the sweetness and consistency I want - dropping off a spoon neither too fast or too slow, very scientific :lol:. I always make a small one first to test the mixture.

Personally, I wouldn’t dream of adding a savoury topping and for that I’d use pancake day pancakes for that. With mine I have them hot with butter and if my diet has been very good, a small amount of maple syrup.

Cheers
NLB

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby northleedsbhoy » Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:27 am

Renee wrote:I used to make those occasionally, but not for a long time now. A smoked salmon and cream cheese topping will be lovely. Are they similar to blinis?


No, blinis are made with plain flour and no sugar according to the recipes I’ve seen. Scotch pancakes are made with s/r flour and contain sugar.

Cheers
NLB :thumbsup

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Stokey Sue » Sat Jan 01, 2022 3:34 am

Blini are really more like pikelets, small yeast leavened, unsweetened or just a little sugar to kick start the yeast

https://www.thecaterer.com/news/foodser ... tin-blunos

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Seatallan » Sat Jan 01, 2022 1:10 pm

Pikelets are lovely. I make them fairly regularly (and crumpets).

I agree about drop scones/Scotch pancakes- to my mind they need to be sweet. :yum
Food, felines and fells (in no particular order)

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Earthmaiden » Sat Jan 01, 2022 1:49 pm

Interested that you feel the sugar is important for the recipe to work, NLB. Of course, most of us have always had sweet drop scones but I'd be interested to try without and to use different toppings (I've only ever had just butter anyway, just as I'd only ever had just butter on crumpets until I was grown up and discovered people put jam, cheese etc on them!). So many things we've usually had sweet (scones, porridge etc) turn out to work quite well with no or less sugar content and other additions instead.

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Suffs » Sat Jan 01, 2022 4:09 pm

Actually many Russians make blinis and the small blinchiki with baking powder nowadays ... and the word blini also refers to a flat 'unlevened' pancake ... absolutely the best blinis are made with buckwheat flour ... kefir is also often used instead of or as well as milk.

Seeing the New Year in with buckwheat blinchiki, smetana with a little creamed horseradish, smoked salmon and salmon roe ... and Russian 'champagne' ... that's the way to do it :thumbsup

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby northleedsbhoy » Sat Jan 01, 2022 4:58 pm

Virtually every recipe I’ve ever seen for drop scones/Scotch Pancakes contain sugar EM and I think to leave it out would change what the finished item is intended to be and I don’t think anyone north of the Border would do that. It would be akin to making pancakes for Shrove Tuesday and adding sugar to the mixture rather than putting it on top.

It would certainly be interesting to find out what the result would be but I think that they couldn’t really be called Scotch Pancakes in the truest sense.

Cheers
NLB

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Earthmaiden » Sat Jan 01, 2022 9:43 pm

Ah! That's true NLB! They'd have to be renamed :D

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby liketocook » Sun Jan 02, 2022 3:11 pm

I make Scotch pancakes pretty much the same way as NLB but don't like them overly sweet. I do like them topped with butter and cheese and a fried one as part of a cooked breakfast is good so I think some savoury flavours would be fine as a topping though I'm not sure about smoked fish working tbh. I've never tried making them sugar free so would be interested in how they might turn out, there seems to be a good few savoury drop scone recipes online and I like the sound of these Nigel Slater one's https://www.theguardian.com/food/2018/o ... es-recipes

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Meganthemog » Wed Jan 05, 2022 5:42 pm

These are a favourite with GS. I don't add as much sugar as most recipes call for as he likes to drizzle them with honey. I'm lucky enough to have inherited my MIL's bakestone and Archie loves to flip them over. He eats them as fast as they come off the stove.

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Lusciouslush » Wed Jan 05, 2022 7:08 pm

Meganthemog wrote:I'm lucky enough to have inherited my MIL's bakestone


Me too - mine is a very well used one from a much loved Aunt who made the best Welsh cakes on it, as do I, but they're not a patch on hers.....

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby ZeroCook » Mon Jan 10, 2022 9:14 am

northleedsbhoy wrote:Virtually every recipe I’ve ever seen for drop scones/Scotch Pancakes contain sugar EM and I think to leave it out would change what the finished item is intended to be and I don’t think anyone north of the Border would do that. It would be akin to making pancakes for Shrove Tuesday and adding sugar to the mixture rather than putting it on top.

It would certainly be interesting to find out what the result would be but I think that they couldn’t really be called Scotch Pancakes in the truest sense.

Cheers
NLB


They're basically all pancake variants. My mother made pikelets and I don't recall that they had added sugar. My father sometimes made homemade cream cheese and chives for with them. When made larger they become (American) pancakes, when made thinner without rising agents, English (Shrove Tuesday) pancakes or crepes, with yeast and buckwheat, they become blini, which brings to mind the OP mentioning cream cheese and smoked salmon.

We have them quite often, occasionally for breakfast, and often just along with certain meals on the side as you would rolls or bread, often wholemeal or roasted fine blue cornmeal., no added sugar. Lovely.

Like the look of Nigel Slater's bacony cheesey ones, and fancy some blini, too :D

Do you use the bakestone on top of the stove, Lush?

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby Stokey Sue » Mon Jan 10, 2022 1:58 pm

In most of England, especially in the Midlands, a pikelet is basically a crumpet but generally made without a ring, so it is flatter and more irregular in shape. It’s usually yeasted and usually made by the baker not at home, so different from the domestic pancake/drop scone, which shows how names morph over locations and families

There’s a little essay by Constance Spry about memories of pikelets in Derbyshire when she was a child, they were considered an extravagance because they could absorb so much butter. My father, brought up in Staffordshire a few years later, remembered eating them with fat bacon to soak up the tasty grease.

My guess is that if NLB went into his local convenience shop and as for pikelets he would be handed a pack of crumpets without a pause

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby ZeroCook » Mon Jan 10, 2022 6:17 pm

.
Interesting. We would have been in South Africa or Australia when she made those, and I notice that s lot of Aus recipes are basically drop scones by another name.

I've taken to making sourdough crumpets when I refresh my starter- which needs doing soon. Perhaps I'll try making them freehand without rings.

All these pancake variations are preferable without added sugar IMO.

Pikelets, being yeasted, then go in the crumpet or blini direction ... cream cheese or sour cream, smoked salmon or caviar definitely sound good :D

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Re: Scotch pancakes/drop scones

Postby northleedsbhoy » Wed Jan 12, 2022 6:15 pm

Stokey Sue wrote:

“guess is that if NLB went into his local convenience shop and as for pikelets he would be handed a pack of crumpets without a pause”

More like Staffordshire Oatcakes around here :lol: . Very popular here being in deepest Staffordshire, well I’m about 5 miles from Shropshire actually. I’ve looked at various recipes for those and some actually do contain a small amount of sugar. Had them a couple of times wrapped around bacon but find them quite greasy, much prefer a bacon sandwich.

Cheers
NLB

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