Blueberry American Pancakes

****If you stumbles across here because of pancake day, here are 10 facts I found out, courtesy of *ahem* The Mirror. Full link here*****

1. The first recorded pancake race was in Olney, Buckinghamshire in England in 1445.

2. The first pancake recipe appeared in an English cookbook in the 15th century. And it’s a tradition that continues all over England. It is said to have originated in Olney as a housewife was so busy making pancakes that she forgot the time. When she heard the church bells ringing for mass she ran out of her house, still carrying her pan and pancake. Olrney still has a pancake race every year.

3. The largest number of pancakes tossed in the shortest amount of time is 349 tosses in two minutes, which was achieved by Dean Gould at Felixstowe, Suffolk in 1995.

4. The longest race in the quickest time was held in Melbourne, Australia. Jan Stickland covered 384m in 59.5  seconds on 19 February 1985.

5. The largest pancake ever made and flipped measured 15.01m wide, 2.5cm deep and weighed 3 tonnes. It was made in Rochdale, Greater Manchester during August 1994.

6. It is customary in France to touch the handle of the frying pan and make a wish while the pancake is turned, holding a coin in one hand.

7. On Pancake Day in Newfoundland, Canada people place items in the pancake batter before it is cooked to tell the future for family members. If it happens that boy receives item for a trade, it means he will enter the trade but if a girls receives item from a trade, it means she will marry a person from trade.

8. Maple Syrup was originally a sweet drink, discovered by the Algonquin Indians who collected sap from Canadian sugar maple trees and then boiled to produce the delicious beverage.

9. Taking the easy way to make your pancakes is not a new thing. The first ready-mix food which was sold  ommercially was Aunt Jemima pancake flour. It was invented in 1889  in St. Joseph, Missouri. It wasn’t very popular at the beginning.

10. Pancake Tuesday is known as Carnivale in Italy which comes from the Latin for ‘goodbye to the flesh’.

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I decided one weekend to go all out, and cook breakfast. It took two hours. Two hours of my precious weekend time when I can have a lie in and don't have to think about stocks or exchange rates and stress about the red numbers on the computer screen.

...nope, I think I was still doing that. Its's an infection! Like chicken pox!

But it never goes away!!!

I think you can tell that this internship is driving me a little crazy. Probably doesn't help that everyone I live with is also doing an internship and working (much more) crazier hours than me. I do, however, want a job offer. Like, really bad. Really really bad. And it's coming to the end of my internship. I have my final presentation next week and I'm supposed to talk and present on 'where I add value to the bank'. But what can I say that makes me stand out?

WELL, I can solve a Rubik's cube in 2 minutes. When I showed my team, they were pretty impressed. Who cares about your knowledge about hedge funds when you can solve the ass out of that Rubik's cube?

I didn't think so either.

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But anyway, that day, I got given some beautiful sunflowers in the morning, and I was in a good mood. And everyone knows good mood + breakfast = pancakes + maple syrup, so here we were!

And then we ate them all. And we saw that it was good.

p.s. Also just wanted to say that it took a while to cook, because I cooked a big load and could only cook them in batches, and only had 2 pans. So I recommend that if you are cooking a lot to use all of the hobs and pans available to you. After all, more pans = more pancakes - long cooking time. I'd like to think it's an exponential relationship.

American Blueberry Pancakes Recipe from BBC Good Food Prep time: about 30 minutes Cooking time: varies depending on how many pans you have 200g/1½ cups self-raising flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 egg 300ml/1 cup milk knob butter 150g pack blueberries sunflower oil or a little butter for cooking golden or maple syrup Mix together the flour, baking powder and a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Beat the egg with the milk, make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and whisk in the milk to make a thick smooth batter. Beat in the melted butter, and gently stir in half the blueberries. Heat a teaspoon of oil or small knob of butter in a large non-stick frying pan. Drop a large tablespoonful of the batter per pancake into the pan to make pancakes about 7.5cm across. Make three or four pancakes at a time. Cook for about 3 minutes over a medium heat until small bubbles appear on the surface of each pancake, then turn and cook another 2-3 minutes until golden. Cover with kitchen paper to keep warm while you use up the rest of the batter. Serve with golden syrup and the rest of the blueberries.