Always The Critic

Beer Review: Wadworth 6X (can)

For once I strayed away from just slinging a four pack of Greene King IPA cans into the trolley and instead went for something markedly more expensive, in the interests of variety.

At 4.3% this has a midrange punch (but not too much for a weekday evening) and plenty of colour and flavour. It's got quite a malty, fruity flavour, which was almost edging into being over the top for me, for a daily evening beer at any rate. That said, probably better to have one of these than two of something more nondescript, and I'm sure the doctor would agree! Recommended for most purposes, especially as we head into the ever darker and colder months.

Scotch Pancakes / Drop Scones

Apparently some people call Scotch pancakes drop scones instead. It's a strange world and takes all sorts, or so I'm reliably informed.

That aside, I decided to make some from scratch for breakfast a couple of weeks back, to go with the maple cured bacon and maple syrup we already had. We always used to just buy a packet of Scotch pancakes and stick them in the toaster, but we didn't have any in and that small problem wasn't going to stand in the way of my breakfast.

The recipe's really ludicrously simple, though the wife seems to have hidden the Hugh Fearnley-Doodah book I used at the time. Luckily, I found his recipe online here and I think it's about the same as the one I used from the book. What confuses me though is the one from the book made about 30 scones so I halved the quantities, whereas this online version says it makes 12, but looks like the version that I read before halving, so use your own judgement :-) One thing I found is that weighing out really small quantities accurately is quite tricky with analog scales, but it didn't seem to cause a problem.

 

It's really very quick and easy to make the batter, the critical thing being the liquidity. I must have got it right, because they spread out nicely to just the right thickness on the hot frying pan and looked like the real deal. I found with a non-stick pan they were really trouble free when flipping, not requiring careful extra oiling as Hugh suggested. I was able to do four at a time, and stacked them up when done, but I failed to keep them warm enough whilst then frying the bacon (I wanted to use that same pan) so the butter didn't melt on them as well as I'd have liked. Next time I'll probably keep them under foil and maybe give them a quick zap in the microwave just the steam them up a bit before bringing to the table.

Finally - and frankly this was a touch of genius-like inspiration - I served with lime wedges. The lime juice cuts through the sweet maple syrup to take it to another level of breakfast heaven! Look at that picture and imagine the pancakes buttered and real Canadian maple syrup drizzled all over..

Robins Limbering up for Xmas

The Robins were posing for me today, for a succession of Xmas card shots. All they need is some snow. And less noise - these are all crops of ISO 1600 shots with 400mm lens, so they're pushing my kit to the limits. I think the top one is best, personally. Click for bigger versions.

 

Breakfast: Kellogg's Start

I was delighted a couple of years back to find that Kellogg's Start had re-emerged onto the supermarket shelves after what seemed like 15 years away. It was my favourite breakfast cereal as a boy and it still is!

Sadly only Sainsburys and Tesco seem to stock it (certainly my local Waitrose doesn't) so we have to make occasional special trips, just to pick up an armful of the stuff. It's been on special offer recently, so that's a bonus :-)

Why it ever went away is a complete mystery to me.