Vintage Recipe Experiment: Blackberry Pancakes

For my most recent vintage cooking experiment I wanted to share with you a new (old!) recipe book in my collection. The Encyclopedia of World Cookery is a 1950s gem by Elizabeth Campbell with over a thousand recipes from around the world. According to the sleeve 'You do not need to be an expert or a genius to succeed with these wonderful dishes, for they were created by housewives for family meals and everything is clearly and simply explained' Well I think we will see if that is really the case! 

For my first ever attempt at making soomething from the book, I decided to try my hand at something simple sounding, and perfect for this time of year - Blackberry Pancakes from the Australia and New Zealand section. 

And here's the recipe! Simple right. Well I thought so, but of course when you read it there is no mention of the milk, which is in the ingredients list, so I had to guess when to add it. I went for at the end as thats what I usually do when making pancakes. 

I used freshly picked blackberries foraged from our local hedgerows. I've frozen loads to for use later in the year. 

The author extols the virtues of the Tala measuring cone, instead of scale so I was pleased to have an excuse to get mine out. 

My super retro flour sifter also came in handy.

Now it said to put the blackberries in before folding in the butter and egg. This was not very successful in my view. And resulted in a rather unpleasant grey looking gruel! Much better to add them in after the batter is mixed for a prettier result I think. 

The cooking instructions as ever are brief, but I cooked spoonfuls of the mix in a pan with a little butter on a medium heat, and turned them when bubbles formed on the top. 

Now these little pancakes certainly wouldn't win any praise from Paul and Mary, with the Bake Off's obsession for everything to be uniform, but I rather like these random splodges! The could definitely do with out the off putting grey colour though. Blackberries in at the end is the way to go. 

They may not look like much, but I can tell you they were completely delicious. Light and crispy and bursting with berries. I could happily wolf down a plate of them for breakfast! A perfect recipe for Sunday brunch. 

So with a few modifications I think this Blackberry Pancake recipe is a winner. I'm looking forward to trying out a few more from this book, French Onion Soup, Jamaican Dump-And-Stir cake and Polish Babas all sound good, though I think I might give the Mexican tortillas involving slaked lime a miss!