Welsh Pancakes, aka crempogau, are delicious in their own right. Here they’re served with a savoury leek & mushroom chocolate sauce. But you can just as well drizzle them with maple syrup, a sweet chocolate sauce or fruit curd instead.
Occasionally, CT likes to explore his Welsh heritage. When we woke up this morning, he announced, “it’s the 1st of March, St David’s Day. Why don’t we have leeks?”. Well why not indeed. With Shrove Tuesday fast approaching, pancakes were on my mind and I’d been planning to make some for breakfast, so why not make them savoury. In fact, why not go one step further and make Welsh pancakes.
Welsh Pancakes or Crempogau
Crempog, as it is known in Welsh, is a small thick pancake resembling a Scotch pancake. It’s less sweet and fatty than its better known American cousin, but is normally served with sugar or golden syrup. Traditionally, Welsh pancakes or Crempogau are cooked on a bakestone, rather like Welsh cakes. Sadly, we don’t have one of those, so a frying pan had to suffice.
CT reckons that the French crèpes and the English crumpet might be derived from the same word as crempog. As it happens, people often serve them on St David’s Day as well as on Shrove Tuesday, otherwise known as Pancake Day. Pancakes used to be made with yeast, but when bicarbonate of soda became widely available in the late 19th century, people switched over as this was more convenient to use.
Leek and Mushroom Chocolate Sauce
So, rather than sprinkling our crempog with sugar, I made a leek and mushroom chocolate sauce instead. I had a brand new frying pan and spatula to use for the occasion which was provided by Sainsbury’s. So I was looking forward to seeing how all this turned out.
The frying pan worked really well. I only needed a tiny bit of butter and nothing stuck – result! Although I made the crempogau rather larger than I’d intended, we were both very impressed with them. They rose well and were light and tasty. They were also quite thick. We cut some of them in half and spread with my blood orange curd, which was a very enjoyable way to eat them indeed.
The leek and mushroom chocolate sauce was delicious too and also went very well with the pancakes. This made for a filling and fortifying brunch to set us up for our journey to Cotehele for Graft, Sow and Grow which is on today and tomorrow. Perhaps not the best way to celebrate a Saint who was no doubt into abstinence, but I defy St David himself not to have indulged if presented with a plateful of these crempogau.
Other Pancake Recipes on Tin and Thyme
- Blackberry & apple spelt pancakes
- Hot cross bun pancakes
- Kefir kale pancakes
- Pea protein pancakes
- Spiced kefir pancakes with manuka honey & creme fraiche chocolate sauce
- Wholemeal spelt pancakes with coffee cardamom chocolate sauce
If you’d like even more pancake ideas, you’ll find plenty of recipes on my Pancakes & Waffles board on Pinterest.
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Welsh Pancakes with Leek & Mushroom Chocolate Sauce – The Recipe
Welsh Pancakes with Leek & Mushroom Chocolate Sauce
Ingredients
Pancakes
- 125 g wholemeal spelt
- 125 g white spelt
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda.
- 2 medium eggs.
- 200 ml sour milk (can substitute buttermilk or kefir)
- a slither of butter
Sauce
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 leek - finely sliced
- 20 g butter ,
- 2 cloves garlic - finely chopped
- 6 chestnut mushrooms - chopped
- 50 ml double cream
- 50 ml milk
- 50 g cheddar cheese - grated
- a grating of nutmeg
- 10 g of 100% chocolate + a little extra for grating
- a few chives - snipped chives
Instructions
- Sift the flours into a bowl together with the bicarbonate of soda.
- Make a well in the centre and crack in the eggs.
- Stir from the centre out, gradually adding the sour milk until all is well mixed.
- Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave to stand for an hour.
- Heat a non-stick frying pan to a medium level, add a slither of butter and drop in heaped spoonfuls of batter.
- Allow to cook for a 3-4 minutes, then turn to cook the other side also for a 3-4 minutes.
- Place on a warm plate and put in a low oven to keep warm until all the pancakes are cooked.
Sauce
- Sauté the leek in olive oil until soft.
- Add the butter, garlic and chestnut mushrooms.
- Continue cooking for a few minutes, stirring occasionally until the mushrooms look done.
- Add the double cream, milk and cheddar and stir until the cheese has melted.
- Grate in a good bit of nutmeg and the chocolate and stir until melted.
- Spoon the sauce over the pancakes and scatter on some snipped chives and a little grated 100% chocolate.
Sharing
I am excited to be entering these Welsh pancakes into Karen’s Cooking with Herbs over at Lavender and Lovage. It’s not often I get to combine herbs and chocolate. The specific theme is rosemary this month, but any herb is accepted so these chives will have to do.
Talking about pancakes, i have tried to make some this morning, made of bananas and seemed to have some difficulty to flip it. Pretty catastrophic 🙂 check my blog tipstoplifestyle.blogspot.com x x
Looks amazing.
Lovely pancakes. I am off to dine at the Hotel Chocolat restaurant tomorrow so I am looking forward to being inspired
Lately I’ve been thinking about how to incorporate chocolate into some savory recipes. This is certainly an interesting and unique application!
I was planning on making savoury pancakes tonight for the monsters tea BUT they ended up with them for breakfast and at school, so may just be a pancake overload! Great idea turning welsh cakes into a pancake stack with a savoury sauce (which sounds delish btw!), totally yum!
Really? It sounds totally bonkers! So bonkers in fact I may have to give it a go 😀
Janie x
Thank Janie, I’m happy with bonkers 😉
This sounds great. I often add chocolate to savoury dishes, but I’d never thought of adding it to a mushroom sauce. GG
Chocolate and mushrooms work really well together. I’ve used the combination a few times, especially good in mushroom risotto.
I love how you manage to create savoury dishes with chocolate. These welsh cakes look delicious.
Thanks Tina, I do like to explore different flavours with chocolate.
Wow! I’d never have thought of leek and mushroom in a chocolate sauce – not quite sure I’d dare…
Dare? And you a chilli head? Of course you would dare Vanesther.
just love how FLUFFY the pancakes look Choclette, one query will butter milk do instead of sour milk or am being a klutz and its the same thing?Would never have imagined combining chocolate into the sauce!
Thank Manjirik. No sour milk isn’t the same thing as buttermilk, but it has the same affect as buttermilk, which I think is what the original recipe stated.
tee hee, pancake selfies! what is the world coming to!!!
I am mostly bemused by it all Fiona – I’ve only just cottoned on to what a Selfie is 😉
So impressive – your crempogau look light and wonderful and I love the speckled effect you get from the spelt flour. As for the sauce, I can only echo other comments – wow! So inventive and yet totally delicious. Yes, I’m sure that St David would have wolfed them down as would I !
Thanks Katharine – I expect you know what they are really meant to be like. But I was happy with them anyway. I like to use either spelt or wholemeal in my bakes so I feel I’m getting something that’s good for me somewhere 😉
I had to read this post twice Leek mushroom and chocolate??? Very innovative I wonder how they taste.
Well, we both thought they tasted good – lots of umami.
They look wonderful. I would like them hot with butter, mmmmmmmm!
Haha, is that a polite way of saying you’d rather not have the leek and chocolate sauce Jac?
Wow they looks delicious! It must be a great combo chocolate with savoury ingredients 😉
Thanks Sylvia. I like experimenting with savoury chocolate concoctions.
Chocolate on a savoury pancake that is impressively fluffy and perfectly light..,wow x
Thank you Deena, they were indeed fluffy and light and delicious.
What an interesting combination. When you said leeks and chocolate I was unsure, but I can really image the mushroom and chocolate working together. They look great
Thanks Katie, it was really the flavour of the mushrooms that came through and as you say they do work well with chocolate.
I was wondering how you were going to get the chocolate into that recipe! How intriguing, I’d never have thought of a chocolate and mushroom combo.
Oh chocolate and mushroom goes really well together Janice. Try mushroom and chocolate risotto – recipe is on the blog.
Forgot to say a BIG thanks for entering this into Cooking with Herbs too! Such an innovative entry!
Thank you for hosting it 🙂
SO bold with your chocolate exploits, you are a TRUE pioneer of all things cocoa related,I admire that! LOVELY wee cakes too! Karen xxx
Thank you Karen, maybe I should rebrand myself as The Cocoa Pioneer.
You’re just so wonderfully brave with your chocolate and savoury ingredients. This looks so luscious. I could dig into that stack quite merrily!
It’s really not as strange as it sounds Dom and I guess it’s my job to expand those chocolate boundaries 🙂
Chocolate in a leek and mushroom sauce – would never have thought of that!
I try my best to surprise Heidi 😉
Chocolate sauce with leek and mushroom…what an exciting and fun idea!
You know how I like to push the boat out Angie 😉
Fantastic!love it!
http://duecuoriinpadella.blogspot.it/
Thank you Alexandra
I love the idea of a leek and chocolate sauce. How brill.
Thanks Bintu – chocolate goes really well with mushrooms and the leeks were fine too.