Today is my first day back to work from the long Labour Day weekend! On Sunday, we took our family to an apple orchard in the countryside for our annual apple picking activity. We went to a town called St. Joseph du Lac. It is only approximately forty minutes away from Montreal’s city center. It is such a picturesque town. It can easily be the scene of a movie set in the countryside. You can see the beautiful Lauretian mountains in the background and there are acres and acres of fruit trees and farm houses all around.
We packed a picnic and ate our lunch in the apple orchard of the farm called Pommalfun. We return to this farm every year as it is simply beautiful. After we ate our lunch, we purchased our bags to collect apples. We walked through the rows and rows of apples and picked the biggest and darkest apples. We enjoyed the sunny, warm day surrounded by mother nature’s bounty!
Now I have so many apples to enjoy and to transform into delicious baked goods. I promised to share an apple recipe every week in September. This week’s recipe is for apple pancakes. Every September at EC Montreal, we served apple pancakes as one of our Wednesday complimentary activities. September’s month theme is an apple a day! Every Wednesday, students could look forward to a new apple activity. In addition to the breakfast apple pancakes, we also held our annual apple festival, apple martini happy hour and tea and conversation.
These activities gave our students wonderful opportunities to interact with one another, to practice their language skills and to make friends. We have cancelled our social gatherings until further notice as one of our safety measures, however, we will be giving our students activity suggestions. Visiting an apple farm is one of these suggestions. Quinn Farm, for example, is accessible by public transportation. Students could also rent a car and drive to the countryside on the weekend. Any student staying in homestay can join the family on these type of weekend outings.
I am delighted to share our apple pancake recipe. We hope you will give them a try. They are quick to make and very delicious. For our version of this recipe, you will need the following ingredients:
- 1/4 cup of melted butter
- 1 egg
- 1 cup of whole milk or cream
- 1 cup of shredded apples (granny smith)
- 1 1/4 cup of flour
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon of granulated sugar
Combine the melted butter, egg, milk and apples in a bowl. Mix them until smooth. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon and granulated sugar. Combine the two mixtures and stir until well blended. Grease and heat a flat frying pan or griddle. You can use butter or vegetable oil. I prefer to use butter. Add the pancake mixture with a ladle, one at a time. When you see the batter start to bubble, you know it is time to flip the pancake. They don’t take long to cook, so keep your eyes on the pan. You can serve with maple syrup or make an apple topping. The topping can be made to peeling and cutting a few apples into chunks. Add the apples, a few tablespoons of butter, 1/3 cup of brown sugar and 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon to a saucepan on low heat. Stir the apples constantly until they soften and the sugar has melted. The sugar will become a dark caramel colour. When you can prick the apple with a fork easily, you know they are ready. Pour this apple topping over the pancakes and enjoy!
We will be sharing this apple pancake recipe on Teams where you can access your Online English Courses or your Online French Courses.
