Perfect Sunday pancakes....

There's little Spring breakthroughs at the moment on Bryher. Beautiful sunsets turning the buildings on Tresco pink, sunny days which trick you into thinking it's warm enough for a picnic and flowers and buds bursting to life in the garden. 

But there's a cold easterly windy blowing into Samson Hill making gardening hard to tolerate. This week we've had our first visitors who had three days of sunshine. They also had the extra low tides which meant they walk to Tresco two days in a row, stopping to chat to people walking the other way. The house suddenly seems much quieter now they have gone. After a winter of cereal and toast I decided to get up early and do us a cooked breakfast to warm us up for a day clearing the autumn bracken and brambles as long as our kitchen. 

My mum's scotch pancakes and bacon (serves 3-4)

225g self raising flour

1 pinch of salt

1 egg

25g very soft margarine or butter

25g caster sugar

225ml milk

spray oil or a little butter

8 slices of bacon (I used Troytown which are like slices of heaven) 

maple syrup 

 Preheat the oven to 200'c. Put the bacon on a baking tray. Pop in the oven. While the bacon is cooking, sieve the flour into a large bowl. Add all the other ingredients and mix with an electric beating until smooth. 

Spray a frying pan with spray oil or add a little butter. Heat the pan up and add a tablespoon or so of the batter. Once it starts to bubble, flip over with a fish slice. You will need to do several batches. (I keep them warm by getting another big bowl and putting a clean tea towel in it and then I wrap the pancakes in it.

Put the pancakes of a warm plate and serve with the crispy bacon and lots of maple syrup.