I grew up going to second hand markets and garage sales. Every second Saturday of the month I was woken up by my mother at 6am to get ready and head off to North Sydney Markets. Every 4th Saturday ( I think?) was the same ritual for Kirribilli Markets. I loved how each time we went, we came home with curious and thrifty treasures. It was an experience I richly enjoyed. I think my love of ethnic food was born from attending markets. As we would leave so early in the morning we would normally have a mid-morning brunch to fuel our rumbling bellies so we could continue our treasure hunt. As a child I enjoyed the cake stall run by the preschool parents at the North Sydney Markets.I would have 50c to spend on a sweet treat of my choice, which was usually devoured after my savoury brunch which could either be; Korean dumplings, a sausage +bacon+egg roll, or Malaysian noodles. Thinking back on North Sydney Markets, I don't think there was as much to choose from as there was at Kirribilli. At Kirribilli, there was the same sausage+bacon+egg rolls, but you could also have these amazing satay skewers with salad on a pita roll, or with rice which were so scrumptious. I also liked a particular Asian food stall which were run by a husband and wife team. Their specialties (at least to me) were their homemade (for a while anyway) spring rolls and dim sims. As for a sweet treat, well this is the true reason why I am writing this post. Have you heard do Profitjes? I was introduced to these amazingly irresistible pancake-like treats at Kirribilli Markets about 20 odd years ago!! It was the mere thought of this stall that helped me get out of bed on freezing cold mornings to go to the markets. Sometimes I didn't care if there was bargains to be had, I just wanted some steaming hot Profitjes with maple syrup, or chocolate or caramel fudge sauce, coupled with banana or strawberries and married with real whipped cream and a sprinkling of powdered sugar. It was so delicious and I am literally drooling as we speak. Oops! Please excuse me a moment, while I wipe up my dribble.
So with this memory in mind and sometimes haunting me from time to time, I came up with the idea of possibly making pancakes in a cupcake pan to try desperately to recreate my child-teen-young adulthood memories of the infamous Profitjes - dutch pancakes. So I made my own pancake recipe, which I am sure we all have our own favourite one. I whizzed up the ingredients in under a minute in my HotMix Pro Gastro. Using well greased cupcake pan, I pour a large soup spoonful of the mixture into each cupcake pan and placed them into a pre-heated oven of 180C. This is what I got.
Super delicious with ice cream and maple syrup. These are also a good idea if you need to feed a lot of people at once and don't want to be flipping pancakes half the morning or night! You could easily add fillings to the batter before they go in the oven too.
