Recipe: Kuwaiti Cardamom Pancakes with Tea Syrup

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I woke up on Saturday morning in the mood for pancakes. Its been a while, almost years, since I last woke up on the weekend and bothered to cook something like pancakes. As I shuffled around my kitchen putting together the ingredients I’d need I somehow stumbled upon my “Kuwaiti” ingredients, aka the herbs cardamom and saffron, then one thing led to another and I knew exactly what I wanted to make.

If you’ve been following my blog for quite some time now and you haven’t been to Kuwait before you might remember my talking about a traditional and quite fragrant Kuwaiti cake we call “Qors Oqaily”. Basically its a dense cake made with lots and lots of cardamom and saffron and baked so its topped with plenty of sesame and is the perfect companion for a cup of tea with milk and cardamom for breakfast or strong tea in the afternoon. Since pancakes are actually cakes made in the pan I thought I’d make them with the flavours of qors oqaily and that involves cardamom, saffron, and sesame.

Its better to heat up a pinch of saffron in a little bowl of water, preferably rose water, in the microwave before mixing it in the batter. The batter mix is from Jamie Oliver’s pancake recipe from this post which calls for a cup of milk, a cup of self raising flour -or plain flour with two tablespoons baking powder-, one egg, a pinch of salt, and 10g of melted butter all whisked in. Add whatever flavour you may fancy and in this case I added freshly ground cardamom, sesame, a hint of vanilla, and saffron mixed in with a tad of rose water.

Then using a flat griddle or a flat pancake iron from Tefal, start pouring ladle-fuls of the batter. Yes, its that easy and straightforward! Make sure the pancake pan thingy is hot enough but not too hot, place it on medium heat -around 7 on an electric stove- and keep a close eye on your pancakes. Each pancake should start to bubble up within 30 seconds. When its all bubble shake it a bit and if it slides off the pan its time to flip it.

Sprinkling the pancakes with a pinch of sesame while its cooking won’t hurt either. Another 30 seconds and its all done! Ta-da!

My pancakes weren’t uniform but who wants perfectly round pancakes when you could have messy delicious insanely aromatic ones? They were screaming for some tea to go with, hand in hand. The batter makes around 8 pancakes which should me more than enough for two or three hungry dining persons.

Because its been forever since the last time I made pancakes I didn’t have any maple syrup at home but then who wants boring old maple syrup for those special pancakes? I’ve decided to make me a sort of syrup/frosting to use on top and because Gers oqaily pancakes went so well with tea and cardamom infused milk I thought why not make a tea and cardamom infused milk syrup?

So that’s exactly what I did. I added about 90 ml of milk, one tea bag, and some boiling water in a pan and kept it bubbling on the stove until the milk became frothy and started bubbling. I removed the tea bag, lowered the heat, and then added some cardamom, a pinch of cinnamon, and 3-4 table spoons of sugar plus one tablespoon of low fat Philadelphia cheese. I whisked everything together and kept it bubbling away on the stove on a medium heat while I poured my pancakes.

In about fifteen minutes the sauce had thickened and all the pancakes were ready to be devoured. The aroma of those pancakes exactly matched the aroma of freshly baked qors oqaili cake fresh out of the oven, comfort food at its best.

The tea and milk sauce had thickened up, a tad too thick for my liking but it was still pourable and quite fragrant on its own.

This is how the pot looked after I was done! I wonder if I made caramel and I didn’t know it?

Anyways, please meet the most delicious pancakes ever!

The best thing about them? There is only one egg and 10g of butter in the mix, while the original qors oqaily cake calls for lots of eggs and much more than 10g of oil or butter which makes it a much lighter option. My husband is mildly allergic to eggs and would usually develop a skin rash after eating a slice of cake but he had no problems eating those pancakes.

And the sauce thingy was just the cherry on top! Zoom in and imagine how that tastes, yes, that good!

I cannot wait for Saturday to roll over and be here already! I need me some pancakes, I wonder why I ever stopped making them for breakfast. Then again I hate my current kitchen, its too dim and claustrophobic I barely cook anything there anymore. For those pancakes, I wouldn’t mind cooking in a cave with no electricity!

Do try this pancake recipe and if it works for you, do let me know. Its the perfect taste of Kuwait <3

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