A Unique Holiday Breakfast
Swedish Pancakes
by Jane Collinge Mack

I was shopping at a local thrift store for collectibles for my husband’s stein collection, when I spotted this unique pan. The tag said $4.00. I turned the pan over to the reverse side and saw “Plätt-Panna” imprinted, meaning Swedish Pancake Pan. What a bargain, and something to add to my cookware collection!

My grandmother was Swedish. My great grandparents came from Europe and had an iron business in the early 1900s. As children growing up, we were told that my grandparent’s business participated in the building of the Ben Franklin Bridge. You would have thought with my Swedish heritage, I would have tasted some of the traditional Swedish foods at our dinner table, but that never happened. 

Since I never had the Swedish cuisine at our dinner table, it made me even more curious to sample a taste of these Swedish pancakes and cook them up using this neat pan that I just bought at the thrift store.

Sunday morning came and my kids chanted, “Mom, I’m hungry. Feed your children.” So I thought, what a great time to experiment on my new funky cookware. I found the
recipe on http://www.allrecipes.com/

These are a little bit of work, but worth it. The pan heats up very quickly, so don’t wait until the “tiny bubbles appears,” as it says in the instructions below, or you will have very brown-burnt pancakes. As soon as they puff up, flip them carefully. 

They are supposed to be served with a lingonberry jam, which is a specialty berry grown in Sweden, but I used a mixed berry jam instead. I am going to look into buying that jam for the next time I make these pancakes.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingonberry_jam

Swedish Pancakes

4 extra large eggs, separated
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons sour cream
4 egg whites
3 tablespoons vegetable oil

1. In a medium-size mixing bowl, beat yolks until thick.
   Add the sugar mixture and milk into the egg yolks incrementally.
   Stir in the sour cream, and add flour into mixture.
   
2. In a second medium-size mixing bowl, beat egg whites until stiff, but not dry.
   Fold the egg whiles into the batter.
   
3. Heat skillet or griddle or funky Swedish pancake pan to a high temperature (then turn the temperature down to a medium heat).
   
4. Place a small amount of oil on the skillet.  (I sprayed the specialty pancake pan with
   cooking spray before heating) and pour about 1 heaping tablespoon of batter onto
   the skillet.  Brown the pancake on one side.  Flip pancake over when bubbles appear
   on surface (or when the pancake puffs up).  Brown on the other side.

This recipe makes about 28 small 2 inch pancakes.

Jane Collinge Mack has been a Pitman resident for the past 15 years and is the owner of Jane Mack Consulting Inc.

Jane is a regular writer for The Women of Gloucester County online magazine and will be our Executive Homemaker columnist. From gourmet cooking to troubleshooting old mainframe systems, she will share great ideas and fun tips with us.

Jane is also the mother of three daughters and is married to Rick, a pretty handy guy himself.