Spelt Pancakes and the Around The World Pancake Relay

Swedish Breakfast

SPELT PANCAKES
(plättar)

INGREDIENTS

2 ½ tablespoons butter
2 cups spelt flour or all-purpose flour
½teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons sugar
3 eggs
3 cups milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons butter
no-stick spray

Makes 60 pancakes

SPECIAL UTENSIL

plett pan or electric skillet (I’ve never seen a plett pan in the wild.)

PREPARATION

Melt butter or at least let it soften. Add flour, salt, and sugar to mixing bowl. Mix with whisk. Put eggs in second bowl. Beat with whisk. Add butter, milk, vanilla extract, and eggs to flour/salt/sugar mix. Mix ingredients with whisk until you get a smooth batter.

Set electric skillet to 350 degrees. Skillet will be hot enough when a drop of water on skillet starts to break up and dance. Spray skillet before each batch of pancakes. Add 1 ½ tablespoons at a time to skillet. (Do not let batter run together. Swedish pancakes should be the size of silver dollar pancakes.) Cook pancakes for about 1 ½ minutes or until golden brown on bottom on bottom then flip. Cook for another 1 ½ or until golden brown again. Goes well with lingonberry preserves, whipped cream, or confectionary sugar.

TIDBITS

1) March 19 is World Spelt Day. On this day, at eight in the morning, a lone runner sets out from Uppsala, Sweden, carrying the ingredients listed in this recipe. At dusk, he stops at the nearest house. The dwellers are bound by tradition and hospitality to let the runner in. Once inside the runner makes everyone spelt pancakes. The hosts adopt the runner into their family.

2) Next morning, a family member takes off with spelt-pancakes ingredients in her backpack, running until nightfall when she too makes pancakes for a lucky family. The spelt-pancake-baking relay continues until a spelt-pancakes runner returns to the original home in Uppsala, Sweden. Thousands of families around the world are made happy. This is Sweden’s contribution to world peace.

– Chef Paul