Canadian Pancakes

It all started last Saturday at Erik's birthday celebration.

For some reason, we all ordered breakfast, and Erik's breakfast came with pancakes. Or pancake. And a very dissapointing cake it was. It was like a thick crepe, kind of rubbery, not fluffy. Not good.

So, Erik and Alex decided we needed to have a pancake night, with real Canadian maple syrup. It would be our speaking French night.

So we did.

In preparation for the feast, I tracked down some double acting baking powder (the ingredient that was obviously missing from the Canadian Bar pancakes). I've learned that baking powder that is available in most grocery stores here is only single acting, which means that the chemical reaction that causes the rising starts as soon as the powder gets wet. Double acting baking powder has something in it that makes the reaction happen a second time, once the mixture gets hot. Anyway, I found both baking powder and baking soda in the German food aisle at la Grande Epicerie (along with peanut butter, marshmallows, and Canadian maple syrup? I guess there's not enough Canadian foods for us to get our own aisle).

I also learned that the longer you let pancake batter 'rest' before cooking it, the fluffier the pancakes will be. So I put it in the fridge to thicken up for about an hour before we ate. Which gave me time to make the bacon that I found at Inno. Yup, it was actually called bacon, and Zoe helped with the pronunciation (think 'bacon' with a french accent).

The meal was super yummy! Alex had brought over her maple syrup, and we all ate pancakes and bacon and Tim Tams (which are our new favourite Australian food) till we were stuffed.

We never did get around to the speaking French part...