Easy as 1, 2, 3... right? 

I went back into Eileen Keady's recipe collection looking for something interesting to try for Pancake Tuesday, something to....

- pair with the pancakes
- try another recipe of our great-grandmother's
- pass away a rainy afternoon with the small girl

I spotted a recipe for chocolate sauce with just 4 ingredients, which looked just the ticket and was interested too to see how a decadent chocolate sauce might have been made in circa 1920 when this was written.

And sure while I was at it I thought we might as well try her pancake recipe too although I was sure pancakes couldn't have changed too much! Here's what I learned....

The chocolate sauce was the recipe I expected to learn the most about as it is based on chocolate powder which I expect was the more readily available/affordable ingredient. We think that this recipe dates from around 1920 (working from a few clues... it is one of the first few recipes which are written in a notebook which was started in her maiden name before marrying in 1922 plus various newspaper clippings and notes tucked in around the pages). I have included the recipe for sauce at the bottom of the page but the pancakes however were the revelation! 

The initial ingredients were the same 1/2 lb of flour, 2 eggs, 1 pt milk
(close to the recipe we know by heart.... 1, 2, 3 - 100g flour, 2 eggs, 300ml milk but the measurements a little different!)

Plus the addition of 4tbsp of cold water, this was added right at the end before at least 1 hours resting time.
The full recipe and picture are below....

These pancakes turned out to be the lightest we have ever made, they were beautiful crepes, fried in Irish butter in the pan.The first time we made it this 100 year old recipe lasted less than 10 minutes on the table! It has definitely made me think that the recipes I think I know by heart are well worth testing from the pages of these old recipe books and more importantly (and maybe the life lesson) time is the key to everything!

Pancakes
Ingredients

• 1/2 lb of flour 
• 2 eggs
• Pt of Milk 
• 4 Tablespoons of cold water

Method
Add a pinch of salt to the flour. Make a well in the center of flour, add the beaten eggs and a little milk. Mix to a smooth batter taking care to beat out all lumps. Add remainder of milk & water. Allow to stand at least one hour. Pour a little onto a hot buttered pan. Cook until slightly brown on under side, toss on other side. When cooked, sprinkle with castor sugar & a little lemon juice. 

Chocolate Sauce

There are just four ingredients....

• 1 pt of water
• 1 oz choc powder
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp cornflour 

Method: Dissolve the chocolate powder in water, when it boils add the blended cornflour, boil for 4 mins and add sugar

This was simple to bring together, we definitely needed to add a little more sugar to taste. It was v rich so a little went a long way (which I suspect was her intention) and we added some fruit just to cut through the richness when serving.