Pancakes with orange & cardamom butter sauce

If your Lurpak® butter is not cold, cut it into chunks and place it in the freezer uncovered for 10 minutes. Try not to touch the sugar when melting or caramelising as this will cause crystallisation and form lumps in the caramel. The lighter the caramel, the sweeter the final sauce. If you want a nice, deep rich flavour, take the caramel to a dark mahogany colour. Lurpak® Slightly Salted butter works best with this recipe, as the salt brings out all the flavours.

If you want to add your own touch to these orange pancakes with the lovely caramel syrup, you can easily adjust the recipe to fit your personal preferences. Not a big fan of cardamom? Leave it out or replace it with, for example, cinnamon or ginger. Depending on what spices you add, you can make the orange pancakes fit any season or occasion. You can also adjust the amount of orange and lemon to play with the balance of sweet and sour. Or replace some of it with another citrus fruit, for example, grapefruit or lime to get a different flavour. If you want a different crunch on top, try roasted hazelnuts or coconut flakes instead. As you can see, there are many ways of adjusting the recipe to challenge yourself in the kitchen and bring your own cooking skills to the table.

Whatever takes you fancy, pancakes can almost always be the answer! Pancakes are so versatile, can be sweet or savoury and therefore perfect for any event or even time of day. The traditional flat pancake can, with a little passion and an experimental food-loving mind, be turned into a delicious flavour packed crêpe, a thicker American style pancake or even as a ball with the Danish name aebleskiver. Built from more or less the same few ingredients of flour, eggs and milk, your pancake dough can be turned into any meal with the right filling.

It might sound complicated, but you can easily make delicious pancakes with a sweet orange and cardamom caramel sauce. In our recipe for pancakes, you only need flour, milk, eggs, and a pinch of salt. Mix the ingredients and leave the dough in the fridge to cool for half an hour before cooking the pancakes in butter on a pan at a medium heat. We serve the pancakes alongside a lovely caramel sauce with orange and cardamom to balance the flavours. And crunchy, chopped pistachios to top off the experience.

Start by dissolving sugar in a pan over a low heat. Then turn up the heat and cook until the caramel reaches the right colour. Add chunks of butter one at a time and whisk until they are melted. If you want, you can add more flavour such as lemon, liquorice, or salt.

To make our orange caramel sauce, melt sugar and cook at medium heat until you get a nice caramel colour. A light caramel is sweeter, while a darker caramel gives a deeper flavour. Add chunks of butter to melt before adding zest and juice from orange and lemon. Let it simmer for about five minutes before cooling. The orange caramel sauce can also be used for our orange pancakes, for waffles or for other desserts where you want an indulgent, mouth-watering syrup or sauce to unify the different elements.