We’re off to New York soon, which is one of our favourite cities in the world! It has such a buzz about it and from a foodie perspective, it’s super exciting. One of the places we love is the Clinton Street Baking Company which serves up beautiful, massive, fluffy pancakes for breakfast. Mmmm, carb heaven. To get us into the NYC vibe, we thought we’d come up with our own version of those pancakes – but make them savoury! These beauts are stuffed with feta cheese and red pepper, and just as fluffy as their inspiration. Make these with a side salad and a cup of coffee and you’ve got a wonderfully virtuous start to your day!

It’s also National Vegetarian Week this week, so you have a good excuse to try these 🙂

Makes about 10 pancakes (depending on size)

1 cup plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp sumac
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup buttermilk (or 1 cup of milk with 1 tbsp vinegar/lemon juice mixed in and set aside for approx 10 mins)
1 egg
1 red pepper, chopped
100g feta cheese, chopped
butter for frying
Frank’s hot sauce (optional)

1. Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sumac and black pepper in a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the butter, buttermilk and egg to the mixture and whisk until just mixed (don’t worry too much about small lumps here and there).
3. Mix in the red pepper and feta into the mixture and set aside. (At this point, we refrigerated the mixture overnight as we knew we’d be busy the next day, which allowed the flavours to meld beautifully but don’t worry, if you don’t have time to do this.)
4. Heat up a frying pan on a medium heat and add about a teaspoon of butter to melt.
5. When the butter has melted, add about 1/4 cup of the mixture to the frying pan. (If you want perfectly round pancakes like ours, grease some crumpet rings and place the rings on the frying pan before pouring the mixture into the rings)
6. Leave the mixture in the frying pan to cook for about 3-5 mins until the bottom of the pancake is browned and there are bubbles on top of the pancake.
7. Flip the pancake over and cook the other side until browned. Don’t worry if the first pancake is a mess, it always is and that pancake is reserved for the chef!
8. Cook the rest of the pancake batter using steps 4-7 as above until all of the batter is finished. If you have made too many pancakes, they freeze well (don’t forget to line each pancake with grease-proof paper before putting them in the freezer to separate easily).
9. Drizzle Frank’s hot sauce on top and eat!

So what do you think? Feel free to share your questions and comments below! We’d love to hear what you have to say.