Shrove Tuesday - icecream & chocolate pancakes

Today is Shrove Tuesday, the 27th of February, aka as Pancake Day in the UK. Back home, the traditions leading up to Lent (ie the fourty days before Easter) are quite different. We celebrate carnival between the 11th of November and Ash Wednesday basically, but this doesn't mean we're in costume every day (although this would explain the misconception that Austrians run around in traditional clothes like Dirndl and Lederhosen all the time) and we don't run around half-naked either, but we do take our carnival celebrations seriously. Each town and village have a carnival prince and princess appointed who preside over the many get-togethers the community celebrates, ranging from masquerades to ballroom dancing (also in costume) and if no such event is to be found, then they (and their followers) meet to make fun of politics, showbiz, humankind or simply each other, for that matter.
During the carnival season, every kid will host a costume party, more often than not offering "Faschingskrapfen" as the main culinary attraction - these are mostly quite simple doughnuts, filled with apricot jam or vanilla custard (although lately, in my hometown alone I have counted more than 20 different flavours), but then one or two of them would be filled with ketchup or mustard instead of the jam and if you're unlucky enough to bite into one of them, then you take home a huge price in compensation. Not bad, eh?
The weekend preceding Ash Wednesday, there are carnival parades and on the following days, "Rose Monday" and "Carnival Tuesday" everybody gets madly drunk, watching the crème de la crème of carnival cabaret/comedy or just dancing the night away dressed up in one way or another. (Off the record I will tell you that my "creativity" (read: lack of taste or common sense) has led me to dress up as a dustbin (a dress made of a dustbin liner and any non-perishable items I could find in the bin - meticulously cleaned, of course!) and, a sort of ashamedly personal favourite of mine even after all these years, "spinach with fried egg sunny side up". It's basically a six-year-old dressed in green tights and a green T-shirt with a felt egg stitched onto the front. My Mum is the artist behind the latter and I am really very sorry I don't have a picture of it here in London, maybe you can send one, Mum, if you read this?)
Ash Wednesday then is the beginning of Lent where we always had to give up something - eating meat or chocolate, smoking (which is quite easy when you're still in primary school ;-)), using swear words etc. On this first day of personal sacrifices we used to eat "Heringsschmaus", various salads involving herring or other types of fish. But pancakes? Never heard of that before, even though we do like our "Palatschinken", as we call them.
This year I decided I had adapted enough to make my first pancakes ever, and, as per usual, opted for the luxury edition - why have a jam filling when you can have a gorgeous white chocolate-laden icecream with chocolate sauce on top?

Icecream & chocolate pancakes (Eispalatschinken)*
(serves 6)

For the batter:
4 eggs
250 ml milk
120 g flour
pinch salt
butter for baking

generouse amounts of ice cream (I used Waitrose White Chocolate Icecream)
200 g dark chocolate (min. 70% cocoa solids)
100 ml double cream

Combine the ingredients for the batter thoroughly with a hand-held whisk. Heat some butter in a pan, pour the batter in thinly (using a 28 cm pan, you should be able to make 6 pancakes) and fry until setting on top and browning on the bottom. Carefully turn over and bake until brown.
Melt the chocolate in the cream, keep hot until ready to serve.
Fill the pancakes with ice cream and drizzle with chocolate. Enjoy immediately.

* Recipe for the batter taken from Plachutta "Die gute Kueche".

Comments

[Niki]

Very decadent indeed! Much more impressive than my hurried wolfed-down version. But no - never jam on a pancake! - always lemon & caster sugar, or lashings of salted butter and golden syrup (for that sweet & salt flavour...mmm!)

[Niki]

Oh - forgot to add. I went to Ash Wednesday mass during my lunch break today (how devout of me...it helps to have Melbourne's oldest Anglo-Catholic church opposite my new workplace) and as I shook the priest's hand on the way out he wished me "a good Lent"! I had to bite my lip to stop laughing. Surely this is inapprpriate?? Thoughtful Lent, dignified Lent, solemn Lent yes. But good Lent? This isn't Christmas you know!

[johanna]

good lent is shockingly inadequate, i agree - but you know, the catholic church has a great tradition of martyrdom, maybe he said it in that light!

[johanna]

apparently in south africa, a sugar and cinnamon filling is all the rage when it comes to pancakes - i've never heard of the lemon before, but it sounds interesting!

[Anne]

Oh man, this sounds wonderful! Hey, I tagged you in a little musical game :) See this post for more details:
http://annesfood.blogspot.com/2005/02/time-for-some-music-in-my-kitchen.html

Have fun!

[kristen]

i really liked your pancakes they were really good. i made them for my class profect and they unbelievably delicious. thankyou and hae a nice day.