Bacon and cheese pancakes recipe

Crispy bacon and flavoursome blue cheese make these decadent and sophisticated pancakes a perfect grown-up brunch option.

Unlike our classic pancake recipe, this version uses rye flour. It's a great alternative to plain flour, because it gives a lovely rustic look to the pancakes and changes the flavour a little too. The result is a pancake that tastes more nutty and malty. It really holds its own against the flavours of the salty bacon and dusky blue cheese. This recipe calls for buttermilk, which you can buy in supermarkets. Alternatively make your own: just add 1-2 tbsp of lemon juice to a pint of milk. Leave it for 5 minutes and it will curdle slightly and create buttermilk.

Ingredients

• 200g rye flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 60g dried sour cherries or sultanas
• 284ml carton of buttermilk (if you can't find, see tip in intro)
• 2 eggs
• 8 rashers of streaky bacon
• 45g butter
• 125g blue cheese, sliced
• 30g walnuts, roughly chopped
• Small handful of dill, roughly chopped

Method

1. Tip the flour, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl and mix well. Stir in the dried cherries or sultanas. Make a well in the centre, then pour in the buttermilk and 4tbsp cold water and crack in the eggs. Beat with a hand whisk, gradually incorporating the flour. Leave to rest for 1 hour.
2. Grill the bacon until crispy and keep warm until ready to serve the pancakes.
3. Melt a little butter in a frying pan, spoon on blobs of about 2tbsp mixture. Add more butter as you need it. Cook for about 2 mins on each side, turning when bubbles appear.
4. Serve the pancakes with the bacon, blue cheese, walnuts and dill.

Top tips for making bacon and cheese pancakes

Dill is a severely underused herb. Most people know it goes well with fish but it's also great with blue cheese, so it's worth grabbing a pack specifically for this recipe. The fresh, almost aniseedy flavour really lifts the dish. If you prefer, substitute parsley or rocket.

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