Perfecting Swedish Pancakes

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Swedish PancakesFriday night my brother and I decided to party by making Swedish pancakes.

Using this Swedish pancake recipe, we made some tasty delights.

I was surprised to find out how hard they actually were to cook. But in the end we perfected our technique!

My brother enjoys calling them crepes, and while they are similar, the recipe is Swedish so therefore they are Swedish pancakes!

The recipe is pretty basic. Eggs, milk, water, flour, baking powder, etc.

Swedish pancake ingredients

Mix until well blended. Simple enough! It seems very liquidity, and I was a bit nervous, but it needs to be that way!

Swedish pancake mix

Next you heat up the pan and throw in some butter. Swedish pancake lesson 1 and 2 . If you don’t heat up the pan, the pancakes won’t cook quickly, won’t brown, and won’t flip well.

Swedish pancake mistake one

And if you don’t butter the pan each time, the pancake will get stuck.

stuck swedish pancake

So the key? Hot pan (medium high heat), butter, and when you dump the batter in the pan, swirl it around the pan until it thickens. The pancake will cook faster and not burn on the bottom. Plus it will be easier to flip and not get batter everywhere 🙂

correctly cooking a swedish pancake

When it looks like above, flip it. I think if we had a bigger spatula it would have been easier.

flipped Swedish pancake

When it was all done, we added jam. Unfortunately it was way to sweet for my tastes (but still very yummy!) Next time? We are going to only add fresh berries!

Swedish pancakes with jam

Then just a bit of chocolate sauce and whipped cream! Then eat. Can’t get much better than that 🙂

Eating Swedish pancakes

So now I challenge you to make your own Swedish pancakes. Get the recipe, and remember these tips:

  1. Make sure the pan is hot. Butter should boil on it immediately.
  2. Make sure to butter the pan each time.
  3. Swirl the pancake batter around until it is pretty solid.

I would love to see your Swedish pancake creations!

8 thoughts on “Perfecting Swedish Pancakes”

  1. Great post and great topic! Pancakes is pretty much the only dish I’m any good at and I like to think I’ve perfected the technique. I would like to offer a few pointers.

    First off, the recipe. I use a simple formula my grandmother taught me: the number of deciliters of flour plus the number of eggs gives you the number of deciliters of milk. So a batch for two or three people would be 3 dl flour, 3 eggs and 6 dl of milk. For those of you not blessed with the metric system a deciliter is 0.4 of a US cup, I’ll leave the math to you.
    Start off with the flour, and beat the milk in one dl at a time so it doesn’t clump. Add the eggs and a pinch of salt. NO baking soda and no self raising flour.
    While doing this you could put your pan on the stove to make sure it gets up to the right temperature, if its too cold the first pancake will be ruined. The first pancake is usually a bit of disappointment since it often soaks up flavours from whatever you fried in that pan before so consider it a trial run.
    The frying pan should not be too wide since it will make it harder to flip the pancake and its easier to flip if the edges are lower and at a less steep angle than the pan in the pictures.
    I usually fry with margarine since in my mind butter burns faster in the pan at medium-high temperatures. I don’t think there is much of a taste difference but maybe margarine differs from country to country.

    In my experience if you have a non-stick pan you don’t have to butter the pan for every pancake, you certainly can if you want those yummy crunchy edges but if wou want a bit leaner pancakes you can butter the pan for every two or three pancakes(you might have to lower the heat a bit for this to work). That being said, make sure to butter it for the first pancake and then use your best judgement. With a cast-iron pan i suspect you need more butter.

    The amount of batter is delicate issue, it determines whether your pancake will be a thick and almost gooey inside or wafer-thin or crispy. Maybe the best way is to alternate the amount of batter just remember that less batter needs less butter and a heavier pancake is harder to flip.
    Knowing when to flip is easy, when all of the batter has solidified it’s good to go. You can also test it by lifting the pan and jerking it back and forth to see if it sticks. If it does then it needs more time. You could also peek under the pancake to look for that golden brown that you want too see when it’s ready to flip.

    I always serve my pancakes with jam (Strawberry, raspberry, blackberry. Preferably homemade, I can’t imagine life without my grandmother’s blackberry jam) and sugar (granulated) and the only drink that goes with it is milk. So make sure to stock up on milk. 😀
    I almost never eat my pancakes with whipped cream, it’s just too rich and filling that way. To me pancakes are a main course and adding whipped cream, in my mind, makes them dessert.
    I hope someone finds these tips on perfecting the Swedish pancake useful, writing them made me hungry.

    Reply
  2. That’s actually really close to a “crepe” with the only difference that the crepe is not wrapped but only folded in 2 or 4 like a napkin 🙂

    Reply
    • haha! My brother, in order to anger me, kept on calling it a crepe. Now I can tell him the difference! (I just said it was a Swedish recipe, so it is a Swedish pancake!) 🙂

      Reply
  3. The recipe from my mom via her Swedish mother-in-law was to include oil in the batter so you only have to butter the pan at the beginning. I only ever had this kind of pancake growing up in Seattle and still do not like the US buttermilk kind. But I love the Swedish ones based on my Swedish- Chicago grandma from long ago – eggs, flour, veg oil and water with blueberry syrup.

    Reply

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