Pancake Torte!!!

Tonight I'm making TONS of pancakes so that I can make a torte. I found a mega sized recipe for SWEDISH pancakes! YUM! I found the recipe here: http://www.pannkakor.se/pannkakstarta?page=20#comments

It's really simple. 1 part flour, 2 parts milk, eggs, salt, and melted butter. Mmmm!

Mega batch

5 dl flour
10 dl milk
3 to 4 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter, melted
 
Put flour in a bowl. Pour in half the milk. Stir until smooth. Add the rest of the milk, eggs, salt and butter. Stir until smooth and incorporated well. Place bowl in fridge. Let set overnight or several hours. The batter needs to rest.

Once the batter is ready, take out your favorite pan. My favorite pan is a Lodge Cast Iron pan, 10.5 inches in diameter. Perfect for Swedish pancakes. Put the pan on stove. If you have a ceramic stove top like I do, be sure to never set the dial to beyond medium. Maximum temperature is medium.

Put some butter into pan once pan is reheated. Be liberal with the butter! This is a dish that should be eaten once in a blue moon, because for one, it's very time consuming, so don't be afraid of the butter. You know the pan is ready for batter when butter is bubbling and is slightly browned.

Pour some batter into the pan, about a ladle. Just enough to cover the pan. Think crepes, not American pancakes. Let the batter bubble and get a dry surface on top. It's ready for flipping when it is really bubbly, is dry on the surface, and is nicely golden and browned on the bottom. Use an offset spatula to flip the pancake over. I only had a small tiny cake decorating spatula, definitely not offset! Flip the pancake. Let the other side cook until browned. Using the offset spatula, gingerly transfer the pancake to a cookie sheet or plate. I recommend a cookie sheet or a cooling rack so that the pancakes can be spread out while cooling. We wouldn't want the pancakes to stick together; otherwise, it will really be difficult to assemble the torte! Repeat the process until all of the batter is used up.

 Let the pancakes chill in fridge until ready for assembly.

I used an aluminum lined cookie sheet to spread out the pancakes. When I used up all of the batter and finished cooking the pancakes, and spread out all the pancakes on the aluminum foil, I put aluminum foil on top of the pancakes. I then took the aluminum foil off the cookie sheet and rolled up the pancakes into the aluminum foil. This allowed me to put the pancakes into a very small space in the fridge. Once I unroll this package, it should be easy to assemble the torte.

When ready to serve, take out the vanilla ice cream (or any flavor, chocolate, strawberry, etc.) from the freezer, so that it has time to soften. Whip up some heavy cream sweetened with a bit of vanilla sugar. Take out a cake plate. Place the first pancake on the cake plate. Spread some berry preserves (or mashed fresh fruit) on the first pancake. Top the preserves layer with some softened ice cream. Then spread the whipped cream onto the ice cream. Add fresh berries on top of the whipped cream. Add a pancake. Repeat. So the order should be like this: pancake ~> preserves (or mashed fresh fruit) ~> ice cream ~> whipped cream ~> fresh fruit ~> pancakes, etc. Repeat until you reach a height of 10 dm. Once you've put the last pancake on top, put whipped cream on top of the last pancake and decorate with fresh berries. Done! Cut into slices like a cake or torte. Mmmmm!