Pancakes make wonderful dinner party desserts, and are ideal for making ahead. The batter for these pancakes is a revelation. Mostly egg and milk, they are so light because they contain very little flour. After filling you could serve them with just some lightly whipped cream, but I suggest you spend some extra time and make a frothy apple-brandy zabaglione-style sauce.

Pancakes

40g plain flour
½ tsp sea salt
2 medium free-range eggs
160ml milk
Olive oil, for cooking

Filling

4 Granny Smith apples
60g caster sugar
60g butter
1 cinnamon stick, snapped in two
Sabayon

4 large free-range egg yolks
60g icing sugar, sifted
1 tbsp Calvados
½ tsp cornflour
1 tsp liquid glucose, optional (this helps to stabilise the foam)

1 To make the pancakes, whiz the flour, salt, eggs and milk until smooth in a food blender or liquidiser. No need to allow the batter to stand.

2 Heat a small nonstick omelette pan (about 20cm) until you can feel a good heat rising, then brush lightly with oil. Pour in about 2 tablespoons of the batter from a small ladle and quickly swirl around the pan to coat.

3 Cook until golden brown and set, then loosen the edges with a small palette knife and check underneath. It should be a mid-golden brown colour. Carefully flip over and cook the other side briefly. Slide the pancake out and stack on paper towel. Repeat with the remaining batter, until you have about 6-8 nice pancakes, making sure to lightly brush the pan in between with more oil.

4 For the apple filling, quarter, core and peel the apples, then cut each quarter in half for wedges. Heat the sugar gently in a heavy-based saucepan with a tablespoon of water and the cinnamon stick until it dissolves and becomes clear. Raise the heat and cook, without stirring, until it turns golden brown. Remove from the heat and beat in the butter until smooth.

5 Mix the apples and then spread in a small roasting pan. Heat the oven to 180C/Gas 4 and bake the apples for about 12-15 minutes, stirring once or twice until lightly roasted and syrupy. Remove the cinnamon and cool.

6 To make the sabayon, bring a pan of water to a gentle simmer. Put all the ingredients in a large, clean bowl and place over the water. Using a balloon whisk or small hand-held electric whisk, whisk slowly and steadily until the mixture starts to turn a pale cream colour.

7 Increase your speed and continue whisking until a pale stable foam forms. You should be able to lift up a ribbon of foam with the beaters that you can almost write with. This will take about 10 minutes. Remove the bowl from the heat and cool, whisking occasionally until tepid. Set aside.

8 To serve, fold each pancake into four like a cone, and spoon in the apples. Lay in a shallow dish. Cover loosely with foil and return to the oven to heat through. Then, to serve, re-whisk the sauce if necessary until light and frothy again, and spoon over the pancakes. In the restaurant, we sometimes brown a sabayon sauce with a blow torch to just caramelise it. It’s a nice touch.

Serves 4-6

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