Happy Mother's Day! [subhead] Sheepdogs and Pancakes

First. HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY! Yay Moms and my Mum in particular. Who is not only awesome and rad but who has been especially nice in the last few months given the fact that I've moved back in with her and spend all day at home in my long underwear sending cover letters, making cookies, and occasionally biting her head off.

So Happy Mother's Day, Mum. I love you.

Now. SHEEPDOG TRIALS.

OMG you guys that was the best day ever. Not ONLY did we get to watch the beginning of the sheepdog trials, we got to see a Sheep Breed Display, WATCH SHEEP SHEARING, and wander through not one, not two, but FIVE BARNS FULL OF WOOL-BASED HANDICRAFTS. I mean. Come on. Perf much? We started at the demonstrations and since we were early we got to talk to a bunch of dog owners and see things close up. 

The handlers yell A LOT and to to me it sounded really aggressive, but apparently I'm a giant softie and that's the only way to do it. (That's according to an old man in an even older raincoat covered in dog hair who I was talking to by the fence.) 

AND there were the SHEEP which made me so incredibly happy.

Seriously they were POSING you guys, they were absolutely killing it. 

Ok take the cooing noise you are making right now and multiply it by about a million.
That's the sound I made when I first saw this in real life. That and I swore in delight.

I wore tweed! I wore wellies! (Thank GOD I wore wellies because there was poop everywhere.) And we BOTH bought woolen hats. It was a highly productive, highly awesome day. 

AND NOW ON TO PANCAKES

As you may have guessed from the subhead, Mum's "breakfast pastry that expresses adequate amounts of devotion" revealed itself to be pancakes. BUT NOT JUST ANY PANCAKES. Special Pancakes. Awesome Pancakes. Super Delicious Pancakes. 

Swedish Pancakes. 

Now. A word on these.

These are as integral to my childhood experience as my Blankie and once cutting off the front half of my hair in a misguided attempt to give myself bangs. I have been eating Swedish pancakes since highchair times. I used to make them with Dad in our tiny kitchen in Cambridge, wearing a little chef hat and an apron. He taught me how to ladle the batter out, how to check to see if they were ready to be flipped, and how to upturn the skillet just so so that you got a perfect circle of pancakes on the plate.

I don't know how long it's been since I or anyone else made them, but the smell of that batter cooking erased all the years in between. It's the smell of summer breakfasts in Maine, of sleepover breakfasts here at the farm, of Christmas and Easter and all the holidays rolled into one. 

I was trying to figure out what to make for Mum, and then I was flipping through the cookbook (Beatrice's, natch) and came across the recipe and thought of course. They're special, they're nostalgic, they're delicious, and they're one of Mum's favourites. 

So. 

MOTHER'S DAY SWEDISH PANCAKES

Swedish Pancake pan. 

These are a bit like crepes but denser, and much smaller. To make them properly you really need the special pan, but you can drop the dough on a large griddle and they will probably turn out OK too.

The pan in question is a traditional Swedish Pancake pan. Cast iron, with seven pancake circles. Every woman in our family has one. We have two, although the other one is difficult to use because the handle got knocked off. I have no idea how that happened but it must have been pretty dramatic because how the hell do you knock the handle off a cast iron skillet? You can still use it, but you need to be crazy careful and you will probably end up with at least one burn.

This ladle holds the perfect amount of batter for each circle.
Just FYI. That's why we always use it.

The recipe is originally from Beatrice, although what I used is the flour and egg-spot covered index card in the recipe box on the counter, in my grandmother's handwriting, that my dad used his entire life. He had it memorised. I'm not there yet.

Just a whisk, that's all you need.
And no, it doesn't need to be made out of reindeer bone.

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 tbs sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup cream
• 3 eggs
• 2 tbs butter, melted, plus more for the pan

Mix flour, sugar, salt together in a bowl. Add milk and cream, eggs, and melted butter, and whisk it all together until it's frothy. You really don't need a mixing bowl for this, plus the whisking is half the fun, and if you're going to bother making a traditional Scandinavian recipe, it seems kind of silly to use a KitchenAid.




Brush each circle with melted butter and, starting with the middle circle, ladle in the batter. And now this is when you have to pay attention. They cook fast, these things. We're talking 1-2 minutes tops on each side, and cast iron gets hotter as you cook, so it's a bit of a culinary sprint to the finish.

Note the slightly paler middle.

Pretty much as soon as you put the batter in, start checking the bottoms with a knife/fork to see if they're ready to flip. Run the blade around the edges and when they come away and are browning, you can flip. Dad always used his fingers. I used mine too. Nostalgia, maybe. Tradition. I don't know. They flip itself is really easy, once you get the hang of it. But if you have a better method of flipping tiny pancakes on a cast iron skillet, you go right ahead.


REMEMBER: The middle circle will not get as hot, or cook as fast. (Think about the burner ring.) So ladle the batter in the middle one first, and flip that one last. It will always be a little paler than the others.


After you flip them and the second side is browned as well, for the love of all that is holy using an oven mitt, flip the pan over onto an empty plate and the pancakes will just fall out and land, if you're awesome, in a circle of six with the seventh in the middle.

Then, as is the way with pancakes and batter, repeat and repeat until there's no batter left. The good thing is that you get more comfortable as the batches go by, so it's ok that you need to speed up to accommodate the pan.

These are amazing hot. They are amazing lukewarm. They are amazing cold. They are amazing eaten directly off the serving plate after a night in the fridge, propping the door open with your hip, not even bothering to fully remove the clingfilm that covers them or turn the kitchen light on.

When I was little and therefore inexperienced in the eyes of my Finnish elders, I put maple syrup on my pancakes. Let me stress that there is nothing wrong with this. They are amazing with syrup and if you are a syrup addict you go right ahead and do that. However. The traditional serving is with Lingonberry jam (I know, esoteric much?) and powdered sugar. In a pinch, raspberry or strawberry jam work too. The best thing to do here, if you are having them for the first time, is try both methods and decide which you like better. Just to make sure you cover your bases. You never know.

The traditional way.

I sacrificed one for the sake of photographic realism.
Mum told me A. Bring me that one when you're done and
B. Don't sacrifice anymore. 

So the kitchen still smells like Swedish Pancakes. Hell, my HAIR smells like Swedish pancakes. But this is a good thing. Because Swedish Pancakes smell like childhood. They smell like stuffing my face at the kitchen table, still in my pajamas with sleep in my eyes, planning a day of ridiculousness with my best friend. They smell like the rustle of the New York Times, my parents laughing over coffee, my Dad smiling and happy and promising to take me to the beach later. They smell of staring out the window at the sunshine and not worrying about anything at all.

So maybe it's good I made these over brioche. Because Mother's Day should be about those things. About warmth and safety and happiness and remembering all the awesomeness of your childhood.

Tonight we'll feast on pickled herring and smoked trout and dill potatoes and tomato salad and black bread. Granted not every Mother would request that for her Special Dinner, but that's why mine is awesome. Given the choice, she goes for fish soaked in vinegar every time.

So Happy Mother's Day to all the Mum's in the world. And especially to my Mum, who loves me SO MUCH that she let me read A section of her Sunday Times this morning before she did. 

That, dear reader, is maternal devotion that should be recognised.