As promised... the answer to last night's carb-craving...

Dad woke up at 9:50am, went to the corner store and picked up a tub of ricotta cheese for me, and I whipped up these hotcakes. They don't require very energetic mixing, so were nice to make on a lazy sunny Sunday morning. (Well, lazy for me, but not for my Dad, as he had to leave for work at 11 and was in a hurry...)

Surprisingly, the mixture has no sugar in it. So, not too unhealthy...

I fried them in a Le Crueset cast iron frypan. As is usual when making pancakes, the first few were duds, and resulted in them breaking up and me scraping bits off the pan... but the rest were fine, and didn't need much oil at all.


Ricotta Hotcakes

Nigella says she likes them served with just strawberries, whilst her children like to drown them in syrup. I think the addition of something sweet is definitely the superior option. I had mine with strawberries, light cream cheese and jams (St Dalfour Strawberry, Swedish Cloudberry). My brother also used honey and peanut butter. Mmm... lovely, but just a touch too fattening for my liking. BUT, if I weren't on a diet, I would have used peanut butter, jam, AND Milo. On the one hotcake. What a heavenly combination!


A "single" portion. (Although I think I ended up having at least 6... I lost count)

I’ve made Nigella’s Banana Buttermilk Pancakes before, and I think I prefer those – they’ve got more interest about them, whereas these ones are quite bland. I’d been wanting to make the hotcakes for ages, ever since I bought Forever Summer, like two years ago. But in reality, they weren’t quite as dreamy as Nigella’s description…

“the flavour of cheesecake, combined with a texture that’s best, if wordily, described as a kind of souffléed griddle cake”

...but still nice. Despite their blandness, they have a lovely light texture, colour, and gorgeous smell. The perfect way to satisfy my carb-craving without inducing undue guilt and self-loathing!