Fluffy chocolate pancakes

The sweet-and-salty combination of flavours, and the fluffy-crisp-creamy combination of textures will have you counting the days until you can make this recipe again.

Fluffy chocolate pancakes Credit: Kirsten Tibballs

• serves

  3

• prep

  15 minutes

• cook

  10 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

Caramelised bacon

• 6 slices bacon
• 150 g brown sugar

Pancakes

• 240 ml full cream milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp of unsalted butter, melted
• 140 g plain (all-purpose) flour
• 35 g Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 25 g caster (superfine) sugar
• ¾ tsp baking powder
• 75 g good-quality milk chocolate chips
• pinch of salt
• vegetable oil spray, for greasing

To serve

• icing (confectioners') sugar, for dusting
• vanilla ice cream
• maple syrup

Instructions

1. To make the caramelised bacon, preheat the oven to 180°C. Line a tray with baking paper and place the slices of bacon on top. Sprinkle the bacon with half of the brown sugar. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes until the bacon starts to colour and then turn each piece of bacon over and sprinkle with the remaining sugar. Continue to cook until crispy.

2. To make the pancakes, combine the milk, egg and butter in a bowl and whisk until blended.

3. Sieve together the flour, cocoa powder, caster sugar, baking powder and salt, and mix well. Add the milk mixture and whisk just until the dry ingredients are moistened (the batter will be slightly lumpy). Add the milk chocolate chips.

4. Grease the egg rings by spraying the inside with an oil spray then place on a flat top Teflon-coated sandwich press. Fill the egg rings halfway with the batter and cook for 3-4 minutes or until the batter is set around the edges. Carefully turn over the pancake, cook for another 3-4 minutes or until the pancakes are cooked through.

5. To finish, stack two pancakes on top of each other and dust with icing sugar. Serve with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream, two strips of bacon and finish with a drizzle of maple syrup.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.