Welcome back to the first Kitchen Bites of 2017! We’ve a few interesting new products in the Foodie Family Kitchen this month, so I’ll get straight into it with a rather exciting new gadget that we’ve been trying out, just in time for one of my favorite food days of the calendar – Pancake Day!
I’ve only ever seen traditional style crepe machines on food trucks at fairs and street food events so hadn’t really imagined you could buy them for your own kitchen, so when Breville got in touch asking me to try out their Traditional Crepe and Pancake Maker, I was pretty happy to oblige!
It’s a stand alone machine that simply plugs into the mains and is pretty lightweight too. It comes with a T-stick spreading tool so you can really look like a professional! You can choose from 5 different heat settlngs, and it gets to temperature in only a minute or two. It took me a few goes to get to grips with the spreader tool, but once you’ve got the hang of it, you can produce really perfect thin crepes. The instruction booklet comes with some recipe ideas too, or you could try out one of my favourites, Traditional Crepes with Coconut Cream and Fresh Raspberries.
Make a simple crepe batter – 125g plain flour, 2 eggs and 200mls milk with a pinch of salt and whisk until smooth. Then simply top the warm crepes with coconut cream – 1 small tin of creamed coconut with 100ml double cream added and whisked until soft peaks form and scatter with fresh raspberries.
Or try making luxurious chocolate crepes by adding 15-20g of cocoa powder to the batter and topping with bananas and caramel sauce.
I loved trying out this gadget and I’m sure its going to get much more use next week and in weeks to come – after all, do you need an excuse for a pancake?
Next up are a couple of sauces from Meat Lust. Buffalo Sauce and Green Sweet Chilli Sauce. I picked both of these up in a local garden center as they looked really funky, and I do love a condiment! Unfortunately I really wasn’t keen on either
photo: Meat Lust on Facebook
With the Buffalo sauce I found it really too sweet and quite gloopy, and I thought the green sweet chilli just left me with a weird aftertaste. Both of them just left me feeling they were quite artificial in taste which was a shame.
Next up another little purchase – this time a Smoked Corn Relish from We love Man Food. This one certainly hasn’t disappointed and I love the smokey tangy flavor. It’s perfect for all things that involve tortillas – Tacos, Burritos, on Jacket potatoes and much more!
Lastly this month we’ve been nibbling on some fantastic dark chocolate from Chocolate and Love. Founded back in 2010 by Richard O’Conner and Brigitte Hovmond the chocolate fair-trade and award winning, with ingredients sought from across the world and production over in Switzerland.
There are a range of flavours including Panama, Rich Dark, Mint, Orange, Coffee, Sea Salt and Creamy Dark, many of which have won Great Taste Awards.
The Orange and the Sea Salt were the favourites for me, and although dark chocolate isn’t my chocolate of choice, I would happily eat these two over and over again!
See you next month for more yummy things that have been going on in our kitchen!
Disclosure: The Crepe Maker and Chocolate were sent for consideration of review, other bits purchased ourselves!
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