Flipping compassionate pancakes

Published 20/02/2012

Compassion is in the process of producing a new consumer guide to help cut through the confusion of labels and "welfare" terms in the supermarket aisles. Please help by telling us how you shop and what you'd like to see in a shopping guide.

Keeping our side of the bargain, please find below a yummy and ethical recipe for pancakes in time for pancake day on Tuesday 21 February!

Ethical Pancake Ingredients

110g/4oz. plain flour
pinch of salt
2 'cage-free' eggs
200ml/7fl oz. organic milk mixed with 75ml/3fl oz. water
50g/2oz. organic butter

To serve

Fair trade sugar
Lemon wedges

Notes on Ethical Pancake Ingredients

Cage-free eggs are labelled 'barn', 'free-range' or 'organic'. Other terms such as 'farm-fresh' cannot be relied upon to indicate high levels of animal welfare. Find out more about our campaign against cages.
Most milk in the UK will be from cows that are pasture-based, but some of it is produced by cows that live indoors for some or all of the time and have a cereal diet. Read more about dairy cow welfare.
Unfortunately, UK retailers don't yet label their milk, butter or cheese as 'pasture-based' so consumers have to buy 'organic' to ensure that the milk came from cows that were grazed outside.
Compassion in World Farming would love to see supermarkets offer suppliers a premium for 'pasture-based' milk, butter and cheese. Without a premium, farmers will face continuing pressure to industrialise production.

Method

Sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl
Make a well in the centre of the flour and break the cage-free eggs into it.
Gradually whisk the cage-free eggs into the flour until you have a thick paste.
Add the organic milk and water mixture in small amounts, still whisking until all the liquid has been added and the batter is smooth.
Melt the organic butter, add 2 tablespoons of it to the batter and whisk in.
Pour the remainder of the melted organic butter into a bowl and use small amounts to grease the frying pan, using kitchen paper to cover the pan's surface evenly.
Get the pan really hot and add enough batter to just cover the surface thinly - you will need to tip the pan from side to side to evenly coat it with batter.
After a minute or so check the pancake is cooked underneath - it should be a golden colour - once it is flip the pancake over to cook the other side for 30 seconds or so.
Enjoy!
Tell us how what you would like to see in a new Compassionate Consumer Guide