Elevate your weekend brunch with a beautiful pancake board; fluffy American pancakes, tart berries, crispy bacon and your favourite spreads!
I absolutely love a big spread. Be it a beige buffet, greek mezze, cheese board or a Sunday lunch. It may create a ton of washing up, but having everything out on the table in little bowls and pretty plates honestly just makes me so happy. Its wayyy more visually appealing, and lots more fun to choose which bits you want! So it was only a matter of time before I created a spread for the blog.
This pancake board is so much fun for a weekend brunch or to level up your Shrove Tuesday efforts!! (Anyone else so underwhelmed by the classic lemon/sugar crepe affair?) And honestly its so simple to put together and you can obviously tailor it to your own topping preferences.
How to build a pancake board!
First up, lets get the pancakes made! This has been my go-to recipe for a few years now. Its super simple, quick to put together and uses ingredients you’ll generally have on hand!
First we need to create buttermilk.
You can buy buttermilk, but I find it quite thick and a thinner buttermilk works better for these pancakes. AND its so simple to make your own that there’s really no need to buy it. All you need is milk and lemon juice. I’m not fussy here, it can be a fresh lemon or the bottled lemon juice from the baking aisle. To be honest you can even use a lime, you just need the acid to curdle the milk which is what will create your buttermilk!
So for your buttermilk – simply mix the milk and lemon juice together and leave to sit for 5-10minutes until thickened and a little lumpy. Whilst your milk is curdling, melt your butter. This will give it a little time to cool before you create the batter.
After that everything comes together in moments. In a large bowl you want your flour, caster sugar, baking powder and salt. Then whisk the melted butter and egg into your buttermilk, and pour the whole lot into the dry ingredients. Whisk until just combined, and then you’re ready!
I only cook two pancakes at a time in a large frying pan. You really don’t want to crowd your pan, so take your time with this. I keep the oven on a low heat, and keep the cooked pancakes in their to keep warm while I cook the rest, so you don’t have to worry about anything getting cold.
With pancakes the general rule of thumb, is to only flip the pancake once air bubbles have popped on the surface of the uncooked batter. Then flip once and cook for a few minutes before removing from the pan.
Also, remember to keep your pan temperature low! Nobody likes burnt pancakes 😉
From there its all about the toppings.
I cooked some streaky bacon till it was super crispy, and then compiled the board!! Strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, bacon, Biscoff spread, chocolate spread, maple syrup, orange juice, coffee…and of course THE PANCAKES.
Honestly the more toppings the better in my opinion, this is not the time to be shy. But I would say the beauty of a pancake board is that you can scale up and down depending on how big of a crowd you’re feeding!
You may also have noticed that my ‘board’ is most definitely not a board… I do have a beautiful marble and wooden serving board, butttt it would likely only have fit the pancakes! So I figured why not use baking paper to create the board of my dreams. I think it works pretty well, and definitely helps when you have different size groups to cater a pancake board for!
I really hope you like this style of presentation, because I loveddd it!
On with the recipe:
Pancake Brunch Board
Ingredients
Pancakes
- 225 ml whole or semi-skimmed milk
- 1 tbsp lemon juice
- 225 g plain flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp caster sugar
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 large egg
- 30 g unsalted butter
- vegetable oil for cooking
Toppings
- streaky bacon rashers
- strawberries/blueberries/blackberries/raspberries
- breakfast spreads
Instructions
- Firstly make the buttermilk. Mix the milk and lemon juice in a jug and leave to sit for 5-10 minutes until thickened and slightly lumpy. Meanwhile, melt the butter.
- In a large bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients. Then pour the melted butter into the buttermilk and add the egg. Whisk together until combined, and then pour into the dry ingredients. Whisk together until just combined.
- Turn the oven onto your lowest setting, and get a baking tray ready. Then heat some oil in a large frying pan, over a medium-low heat and spoon batter for two pancakes (roughly 3tbsp each) into the pan, well spaced apart. Leave to cook until air bubbles have popped onto the surface, then carefully flip over and cook for 2-3 minutes further until nicely browned on both sides. Place the cooked pancakes into the baking tray and place into the oven to keep warm. Repeat the process with the remaining batter, making 8 pancakes in total.
- While the pancakes are cooking, cook your bacon to preferred level of crispness.
- Once all the pancakes and bacon are cooked, assemble onto your board with fruits and breakfast spreads.
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