Semolina Yeast Pancakes with Honey and Butter

Excellent, moist, rich tasting pancakes, if you can spare the extra hour to let the batter rise. I should have re-read Zosia’s review as I too did not notice the 2 cups of water and ended up pouring the batter into a larger bowl so I wouldn’t have a disaster when the batter rose. But I should not have worried; it did not look like it doubled in size. I watched my holes form and then vanish “ very frustrating. I added a little more flour (the Florida humidity factor), but the solution was to use less than the 1/3 cup of batter called for. My pan was 6” across on top, but closer to 4” on the bottom where it counted and that made all of the difference. We too skipped the butter part and enjoyed orange blossom honey on our pancakes.

These tender, airy pancakes, with their myriad pockets to hold golden honey, made a lovely Sunday breakfast.

The batter, which included water (why isn’t this listed with the other ingredients?), milk, all purpose and semolina flour (I used "No.1 Fine” durum atta), egg, yeast and baking powder, came together very easily in a blender. I thought the amount of salt called for in the recipe seemed excessive, so I used only half. The pancake was nicely flavoured so I think the adjustment worked. The batter doubled in volume during a 1 hour rest.

They cooked quickly, the hundreds of holes appearing almost immediately - fun to watch! - and the lacy edges curling and lifting from the pan signifying the bottom was golden. I used a 6” pan and made 12 pancakes.

The semolina flour and the yeast gave these pancakes a really distinctive flavour, quite different from other crepes or pancakes. We don’t eat butter with pancakes, so instead of honey butter, I served them with blueberry flower honey warmed with a little water and a squeeze of lemon juice. Delicious!