My father was famous in our family for cooking one thing: pikelets. He told us they were called drop scones in Scotland where he grew up and, just occasionally, he’d treat us with a batch of these mini-pancakes. I remember the milk was soured with lemon juice and the batter had to rest for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, the batter was dropped into a hot pan and we kids waited in anticipation watching the bubbles slowly form before they were flipped over, then finally out onto a waiting tea towel! We added butter, a sprinkle of sugar and squeeze of lemon juice and popped them into our mouths! After Daddy passed, my sisters and I realised no one had written down the recipe for his drop scones. It was lost for all time – or so we thought! Then, while looking through my Nanna’s old recipe file, I came across a pikelet recipe in her handwriting. The words ‘lemon in milk’ jumped out at me, that was what I remembered most about Daddy’s drop scones, watching the milk curdle. Nanna (my mother’s mother) and Daddy spent a lot of time together in the last years of his life; I don’t know for sure that he passed his drop scone recipe on to her, but I haven’t come across any other pikelet recipe that curdles the milk for the batter so I’m going to believe he did. Cook up a batch of these Scottish drop scones for someone you love soon. See the video below for another deliciously easy Scottish recipe.
Makes 10 pikelets
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