Use up your leftovers this pancake day – recipe ideas!

Leftovers are a fact of cooking life. They can be boring, annoying and dull, however, the magic of a real kitchen fairy lies in the knowledge of the secret: there is another way to look at leftovers – a way that can save endless time, hard work and money, and can lift the kitchen fairy into the heights of a magic queen. Cook once, eat twice! Cooking once and eating more means not just reusing, but purchasing larger amount of things when they’re on sale. Although the recipe below was created from an accidentally misjudged recipe, the reusing cycle of a household can be preplanned and well organised. Once the recipe is written and tried, instead of having unplanned leftovers, the excess food can be put to good use. In my kitchen “planned-overs” stand for the extra amounts of key ingredients such as biscuit and bread, that can be prepared in additional quantities to use in a future meal. With planned-overs, you can cook it once but eat it many times… Scotch Pancake Torte Makes 6 100g flour 50g caster sugar 1 medium free-range egg splask of milk Add the flour and caster sugar sugar to a bowl. Add the egg, a splash of milk and mix into the sugar and flour using a whisk. Smooth this mixture out by gradually adding and whisking in splashes of milk. The aim is to have a relatively thick batter. Heat the frying pan, covered with little oil. When the frying pan is hot, ladle in some of the batter. Pancakes are ready to be turned when bubbles start to form on the surface. Turn and cook until the surface is golden brown (in total about 2 minutes). Remove from pan and re-grease using paper towel if necessary. Use six to eight of leftover pancakes and layer them with a jam or buttercream of choice. Serve with a sweet fruit compote. Crunchy Biscuit Crepes 100g leftover biscuits 30g butter 150g plain flour 1 large free-range egg 325ml milk Break up the leftover biscuits (any type of shortbread or cookies works well). To make the crepes, melt the butter and allow to cool a little. Put the plain flour into a bowl, whisk in the egg and milk, then finally, just before making the crêpes, add the melted butter. Add the leftover biscuits. Heat a seasoned crêpe pan and ladle 2-3 tbsp of batter into the pan then quickly hold it up and swirl so that the batter forms a quick, thin pancake covering the base of the pan. This will cook in a minute so flip it and cook for 30 seconds to a minute on the other side, then remove the pale crêpe to a layer of baking paper. Serve folded up, with chocolate sauce inside. Recipes and blog post by Judit Hovath from juditbakes.com – visit her site for more ideas and inspiration from around the world!