One Flame Pudding - Cheap and Cheerful

November is when I start to feel the need for a pudding to finish an evening meal, and not something like a pastry or a blob of ice cream either, it needs to be sweet and starchy. I put it down to the failing light - yesterday it felt as if the day were ending about 3:30, and when we ate at 6:30 (it would have been 7:30 in spring and summer) the world had closed around us, cold, dark, unwelcoming. The body craves supplies to get it through the winter.

Earlier we had warmed and cheered ourselves - and rewarded, as we'd just chopped down an unproductive tree at the allotment and dug several beds over - with my favourite winter-warmer, hot buttered rum. A measure of rum (Kraken spiced rum the first bottle to hand) pinch of cinnamon and mace, tsp of sugar, and three measures of boiling water in which a tsp of unsalted butter is melted and vigorously stirred. Cake in a mug. Toddy or pudding (and pudding), damp cold weather has its compensations.

Only having thought of the need for a pud as the main course neared readiness possibilities were limited, pancakes the obvious choice.

Everyone loves pancakes, and everyone should be able to make them. For student bedsits for example it seems the ideal standby, minimal ingredients, quickly done, and informal - they are best eaten hot from the pan rather than batched up to eat together, so traffic and conversation flows in and out of the kitchen.

Why in Britain many people don't eat them other than on Pancake Tuesday is beyond me. For a few pence you have something that carries savoury or sweet fillings, is rapidly made, and tastes great.

Plain flour, an egg, and milk are whisked until a single cream consistency is arrived at, a pinch of salt added, and for pudding ones a tsp or three of sugar. Non-stick pan barely greased and heated, just enough batter to thinly coat its surface is poured in (it's a big mistake to make fatter versions, they take longer to cook, and the middle ends up doughy while the surfaces overdo), and tossing or flipping with a spatula the pancake is cooked in a couple of minutes. As with all cooking, a decent pan - with a heavy base - makes life easier, but pancakes are more forgiving of thin pans than most things.

We had most of ours with ice cream and chocolate sauce, one with maple syrup. A couple last night were eaten as they were. Sometimes a squeeze of lemon or orange juice and sugar is preferable, sometimes butter and sugar. We all felt better for them.