More Flippin' Pancakes

The house is tidy, Bob's made litres of batter and we await the guests for tonight's Pancake Party. Our feast will simply be pancakes with sugar, lemon and  syrups - but I did like the look of this 18th century Banniet Tort recipe which I found online.

This delicious pudding, delicately flavoured with sack and orange flower water, is made from pancakes encased in a light puff pastry crust. It seems to be the original invention of 18th century cook Charles Carter, who published the recipe in his The Complete Practical Cook in 1730. He gives a number of other tort recipes, which appear in no other work of the period.

Take a Pint of Cream, and make it into Pancake Stuff; season it as you do Pancakes, and fry off eight of them fine, crisp, and brown; sheet a little Dish with Puff-paste, and lay in the Bottom, some Slices of Citron; lay on those a Pancake; then lay more Citron** and Orangado**, or Lemon-peel slic'd; then have some Sack , and Orange-flower Water and Sugar mingled together, and sprinkle over; Lay another; then more Sweetmeats, and sprinkle between every one still till you have laid them all: Lay Sweet-meats on the uppermost, and sprinkle what you have on the Top, and close it with a thin Lid, and bake it off pretty quick; and when bak'd, cut it open, squeeze in an Orange, and shake it together, and cut the Lid to garnish; sugar it over, and serve it.

From Charles Carter The Complete Practical Cook (London:1730)

**various candied citrus peels

If you need a pancake recipe, here's another from the same period

Take a Quart of thick Cream, a Pint of Flour, six spoonfuls of Canary**, a dozen of Yolks, and six Whites of Eggs, half a Pound of melted Butter, a little Salt, and a grated Nutmeg and Sugar. Make a Batter and fry your Pancakes in a dry Pan.

From John Nott The Cook's and Confectioner's Dictionary (London: 1723).

**that’s wine from the Canary Islands, not yellow birds

If you are passing any time between 6 and 10pm, please drop in! I will be leaving the party early - as the local Radio Station want to interview me about Friday's Women's World Day of Prayer. I am trying not to get too nervous!