Spelt Pancakes with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche

I don't know about you but we love brunch in our house. It's the perfect weekend meal; allowing for lazy lie in's, good food, coffee, the newspaper and even making drinking before 12pm acceptable (in our house anyway!). But I'm sure I don't need to sell the benefits of brunch to anyone these days.

Brunch at home it pretty special, brunch eaten out possibly more so and brunch on holiday, to me, is the ultimate luxury. Particularly if there is sun involved. Oh and cava too (or anything with bubbles....) T and I recently went to Mallorca in search of a serious vitamin D top up. We had lots of wonderful food on our trip but the best meal by far was the brunch we had at our hotel. These pancakes are inspired by a dish that we ate there.

I decided to make these pancakes with spelt flour because the nutty flour gives a good robust base to the smoked salmon and crème fraîche - much in the same way as you would use buckwheat flour for smoked salmon blini's. If you don't have spelt flour feel free to try this out with any other wholemeal flour you have too. The rest is really rather easy, which is, I think, what you want for brunch. Feel free to mix up the fillings you use here too, anything goes; parma or iberico ham, cheese, sautéed greens, a fried egg even - go wild! What is your favourite brunch recipe?

Spelt Pancakes with Smoked Salmon and Crème Fraîche
Makes 2 pancakes - recipe is easily increased to make more

55g spelt flour
1/2tsp fine salt
1 egg
50ml milk
50ml water
10g butter

4 tbsp crème fraîche
chopped chives
100g smoked salmon

Sift the flour and salt together into a medium mixing bowl. Add the egg and whisk to combine then slowly add the water and milk and mix together to make a batter the consistency of thick cream. You can make the batter in advance and leave covered in the fridge until you need it - in fact it often benefits from being rested so I tend to make it the night before.

When ready to make the pancakes melt the butter. Heat up a large frying pan and brush the pan with melted butter. Pour in half the batter and swirl it around the pan so it is evenly distributed. You want a large pancake that is about the thickness of a 2p coin. Cook over a medium heat until you see bubbles on the surface and the under side is golden brown, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook on the other side for another 2 minutes until golden with dark spots. Keep the pancake warm whilst you use the rest of the batter to make the second pancake.

When ready to serve spread each pancake with 2tbsp crème fraîche, season lightly with salt and lots of black pepper. Sprinkle over half the chives and lay over half the salmon and repeat with the second pancake.