Pancake Day

Last Tuesday was Pancake Day (also known as Shrove Tuesday), the last day preceding the first day of the Lent. In most traditions the day is celebrated by feasting on fatty foods like pastries, meat, or pancakes. In Finland the day is called Laskiainen and is celebrated by eating a pastry called pulla (cardamom buns) filled with whipped cream and jam or almond paste and going tobogganing. I would have liked to make some pulla but unfortunately I've been sick for two weeks now (even excessive use of honey and ginger don't make this flu any easier to beat). Because it takes such a long time to make pulla I decided to follow the English tradition instead and make some pancakes.

I often prefer to prepare my pancakes vegan. You can easily replace the eggs with soy-yoghurt, soy-flour or apple-mash (or just simply leave it out) and if you're a health-freak like me, you can use whole-wheat flour. Finnish pancakes are similar to crêpes and usually cooked on a frying pan but the batter can also be spread on a sheet pan and baked in the oven (then it's just called pannukakku instead of lettu). I've always been pretty good at cooking pancakes and usually managed to make them nice and crispy but this time something just didn't work. The batter burned on the pan even though I used plenty of oil and the pan wasn't too hot. It just simply refused to adapt a shape resembling a pancake in any way. The result looked like this:

I just had to comfort myself with the fact that I wasn't at home and I had to use the equipment of an unfamiliar kitchen. Because I still wanted pancakes I decided to add ½ teaspoons of baking powder and bake it in the oven. The pancakes did turn out delicious this way, but I would have preferred them fried. So if you want to prepare the pancakes on a pan I suggest you use a little less flour and choose apple smash or soy-flour as an egg-replacement instead of soy-yoghurt to make the batter easier to handle. Or you can just prepare the batter with grain/soy milk and flour without any other ingredients. You have to be careful while cooking to make the pancakes stay in one peace (it's easier if you make small pancakes), but I've done pancakes this way many times and they turn out delicious.

Vegan oven-baked pancake (or Pannukakku)

• 5 decilitres grain/soy milk
• 3 decilitres of (whole-wheat) flour
• 2 tablespoons (app. 1 dl) of soy-yoghurt
• ½ teaspoon of baking powder
• You can also add 1 tablespoon of sugar and/or 1 teaspoon of salt and/or few tablespoons of oil

Mix all of the ingredients in a bowl and let the batter rest for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Cover the sheet pan with a bakery paper. Spread the batter on the pan and bake it in the oven for 25-35 minutes or until it has a nice golden brown colour and feels somewhat firm. Let the pancake cool down for a while and cut it in squares. Serve the pancake with jam, fruit or berries.