Do you ever have those days when nothing ever goes right in the kitchen? As if everything that you make is cursed and nothing turns out just how you want it to be? I’ve had my share of those days on occasion. I call these curse days. The best I can do is try again another day and usually lo and behold, the next day things just happen to work, even if you are using the very same recipe!
Today however I was lucky. I must have been blessed by the gods of pastry because the two things that I made today the pineapple meringue pie and these Gundel pancakes actually worked out exactly how I wanted to. I had no time to do another before I went away so I was praying that they would come together. And it was in this rush that I wanted to skip the chocolate sauce part and just mix chocolate and cream together. I was sorely tempted but I decided to give it a go. After all I wasn’t on a curse day so perhaps it would work out fine. I also thought that this would be wrong as I wouldn’t be making it authentically and there’s nothing I love more when people say that it tastes like it should and there’s nothing I dread more than people saying that it doesn’t.
We first had these at Corner 75 and we all fell in love with them. Mr NQN heaped his highest praise on these ever and I wanted to make them at home. Károly Gundel created these pancakes which are filled with a finely ground mixture of walnuts, raisins and lemon zest and they are flambeed at the table. The Gundel restaurant is still open in Budapest. I asked Christie for some tips as her mum is Hungarian and she told me to grind the walnuts as finely as possible with the sugar to ensure that it wasn’t gritty. Her grandmother who made these for her used to also remove the skin from the nuts but I wasn’t quite prepared to do that so I toasted them instead.
The smooth walnut filling
When Mr NQN came home his eyes lit up at the sight of the pineapple meringue pies and the Gundel pancakes. The pancakes have such a gorgeous walnut topping that I think I prefer them without the rich chocolate sauce. He was tempted to give the actual dinner a miss in favour of a dinner full of sweets. They are so fantastically good and you can make the filling ahead of time and store it in the fridge, ready to make when you have are curse day free. Or to break the curse on a curse day as I’m sure they would make any curse hastily retreat. As for me I’d like a few more days like this in the kitchen please.
And in some very exciting news, I was featured in a fantastic Swedish magazine Lantliv Mat & Vin (Countrylife Food & Wine). You may know that I do have a slight (ok more than slight) obsession with Sweden and the Nordic countries (well I did marry Mr NQN after all! 
) so this is doubly exciting! They featured my Lollipop cookies!
Gundel Pancakes
Makes 8 pancakes, 2 pancakes per serve
For pancakes:
- 3 eggs
- 1 2/3 cups of milk
- 1 1/4 cup flour
- butter and oil to fry
For Walnut filling:
- 125g/4ozs walnuts
- 60grams/2 ozs raisins
- 60grams/2 ozs sugar
- zest of 1/2 a lemon
- 4 tablespoons of rum
For Chocolate sauce:
- 2 teaspoons Dutch process cocoa, sifted
- 2 teaspoons caster sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1/4 cup cream
- 1/2 cup milk
- 60grams/2ozs dark chocolate, chopped into smallish pieces
- 1 tablespoon rum
- 1 tablespoon butter
To assemble:
- 2 tablespoons icing sugar
1. For walnut filling (this can be made ahead of time), toast the walnuts in a dry frypan on medium heat until fragrant. Then place all ingredients in a food processor and blend until it becomes a paste and ensure that the walnuts are finely blended. Set aside or refrigerate if you have made it ahead of time.
2. For pancakes, beat the eggs and milk together and then slowly add into the flour mixture to ensure that there are no lumps. You can also make the pancake mix ahead of time, just keeping it covered in the fridge until ready. Heat a frypan on medium and add butter and oil and then fry pancakes. Put aside.
Finishing off the chocolate sauce with some butter
3. For chocolate sauce: In a jug whisk the egg yolk. cocoa and sugar. In a small saucepan, heat up the cream and milk until almost boiling. Remove from heat and add to cocoa, sugar and egg mixture and whisk. Put heat on low and return to the mixture to the pan and stirring constantly for 2 or so minutes, create a custard. Add chocolate and rum and stir more as this thickens. Finish off the sauce with a tablespoon of butter to make it glossy.
4. Assembling the crepes: ensure that the walnut filling is room temperature if you have stored it in the fridge as spreading it can tear the pancakes. Spread one half of a pancake with the walnut filling and fold over into quarters. Place on plate and repeat with the rest of the pancakes, putting two on a plate. Pour molten chocolate sauce over the top. You can also sprinkle it with icing sugar if you want.
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63 Comments | Add your own
Congratulations on the mag feature! Gotta love those Swedes!
hehe I definitely have those curse days too, Lorraine! These pancakes are right up my alley as I absolutely LOVE walnuts! Thanks for sharing this, it’s a great recipe! x
These look really good! When I was younger, I had a best friend who moved to Australia from France who blew my mind when she put Nutella on pancakes
Now I think she was a genius!
The pancakes look beautiful daaaahling. Wishing you many more cooking/ baking “good days.” Congrats on getting your lollipop cookies published. They were so unique and fun
, its no surprised that someone featured them in a magazine.
*kisses* HH
oh my – these look so wonderful!! Yay for kitchen successes!
Matsnack?
OMG, those are to die for! I love the filling and that luscious combination.
Cheers,
Rosa
I had a cursed kitchen day last week.
I tried making very simple potato rosti’s and they keept falling, apart it was so frustrating!
These look superb – and I want to drink that chocolate sauce – so glossy and rich.
Yum, I was drooling the other time you wrote about these pancakes at Corner 75. Looks achievable now that you’ve written the recipe here. I’d be giving up dinner if this was waiting for me after work =)
oh this nut filling reminds me of a thicker, fluffy pancake very similar to this that we have in Singapore. It’s a kind of kueh..doesn’t look half as badass as yours (with all that chocolate dripping all over it) but it’s good. so i bet this is ridiculously delicious too. i like it i like it i LIKE IT!
these look INCREDIBLE. must try them.
congrats on the mag feature!
Hi Lorraine … nice pancakes … and yes i to had an obsession with all tings Sweden many years ago … but alas not for foodie type things but for … my omg i might die ..EUROPE.. the band … so tragic … felt so right at the time though…hahahahahaha….
Mr. NQN is such a lucky man! I would gobble these pancakes (crepes?) up in a heartbeat and whatever else you cooked
.
Oh I love it when everything goes well in the kitchen. Unfortunately I’ve had rather a bad run at late. The Simply Wyze French bread sticks didn’t turn out nearly as well as I hoped, and my last bunch of Anzac bikkies were dry and rock-like.
I’ll never make an NQN-clone, but at least I try!
These are quite possibly the most delicious looking pancakes ever! Thank you so much for this, the pictures are mouth watering!
Perfecto darling! The walnut paste looks very good and I agree with you that they don’t really need the chocolate sauce if you get the sweetness of the walnut paste right. I really want some of these now!
Ooh, looks delicious Lorraine! And congrats on being featured in the magazine, your lolly biscuits were awesome.
Nothing wrong with a dessert only meal so long as there is a fruit involved!
O.M.G……. MUST make these!
Ive had this at Corner 75!!! =) Thanku for the recipe!!! Nom Nom Nom!
Yum. Just love nuts in cakes and pastries – well anything european rings my bell! We grew up having pancakes (crepe style) for dinner every Friday night but nothing as decadent as this.
Oh these look awesome! Walnuts and chocolate go so well together
Congrats on the feature!
Coincidence! I went out with a nice Hungarian man on Saturday night to Cafe Gundel in Rose Bay North (Sydney) where he insisted (ok, not much persuasion required) that we finish off our meal with Gundel pancakes, explaining their fame in Budapest. Yum.
congratulations on the mag feature! Those pancakes look divine and remind me of the ground walnut filling my partner’s Croatian grandma(Baka)makes for her swiss roll looking yeast cake(Gibanica). It can also be made with sweetened ground poppyseeds (yes ground!). We managed to source a poppy seed grinder for her birthday a couple of years ago.
These look so good. While I know these are actually a dessert, I wouldn’t say no to having these for breakfast.
I think I just put on 2kg reading this post. A nice alternative to Crepe Suzette. Congrats on the magazine feature.
I may not be a huge fan of walnuts or of pancakes/crepes, but Lorraine… I want your chocolate jug. It’s gorgeous!
These looks so delicious and take me immediately back to Paris. CONGRATS on the mag…how did you ever find out?? (Or are you in the habit of reading Swedish mags??)
this looks great thanks lorraine
Yum!and congratulations. I guess “Down Under” doesn’t need translation?
I too have curse days. I haven’t yet found a cure, but am willing to try this recipe.
Thank you
Um, these look amazing!
Yes, please! Can i have some pancakes? What do you mean there’s none left?
Congrats on the magazine feature. This is awesomeness!
Those are the fanciest pancakes ever. Love the ground nuts in them. And I would never turn down the chocolate, even if it’s overkill. How could I?
What a gorgeous combination of flavours! I always get suspicious on days that go well without a single problem!
Congras! I loved that lollysticks too.
Walnuts + Pancakes + Chocolate = Life doesn’t get much better. I love your cooking days so wishing you many, many more curse-free days puttering about. A big congrats on your newest recipe publication. Very cool!
Congrats on the magazine article thats awesome!
loving walnut filling cant wait to try it
Oh my those Gundel pancakes looks and sounds fabulous… mmm…
First of all congratulations for the article!
Second, that filling and sauce are to die for!
Third, crazy woman! You actually made the pineapple meringue pie AND these on the same day? How do you do it?
I’ve never actually tried any other types of pancakes so this is quite interesting. Perhaps a project for the weekend!
That filling sounds so good I think I’d give the chocolate sauce a miss (as good as it looks).
Grattis on the write-up!
am so trying this!!! sounds fantastic!
Last week I had an order for 1 doz anzac bikkies, sounds easy doesn’t it? I threw out 3 doz. It is the SAME recipe I use every single time, no changes, what was wrong? Thanks for enlightening me.
How fantastic to be in the magazine! I hope they sent you a translation of what it said!
These pancakes are amazing and I cannot imagine them (or you) without the chocolate sauce! Gorgeous! And congrats on being in the magazine! Yay!!! Fantastic!
Wow that’s a decadent pancake. Yumm! Bookmarked
Congrats on the magazine feature
Those pancakes look divine. So tempted to make them this weekend and drizzle them with plenty of chocolate!
Yum! I made my hubby pancakes for Father’s Day… they were pretty much the opposite of these beauties!!
Congrats on the magazine feature
I think I sometimes have curse weeks! Your pancakes look fantastic, and congratulations on being featured in the magazine!
I love the idea of walnut pancakes and chocolate is always good. I must add this to my pancake collection. It would be a wonderful change of pace.
Congrats on your magazine feature — your lollipop cookies are adorable! The walnut filling in these pancakes sounds perfect! I’d be tempted to eat it with a spoon.
Great post. If you ever go to Budapest in Hungary, you must try the Gundel restaurant. Its very traditional but rather lovely.
I’m often tempted to have a dinner full of sweets. Your crepes sound heavenly. I had curse day not too long ago, I just didn’t know what to call it. Now I will. xoxo Mum
Congrats to the article in the swedish magazine, from a swedish subscriber!
Best regards,
Viktoria
YUM…. there goes my waist line!!!
that filling needs no wrapping paper–it’s marvelous! what a decadent little meal.
Lorraine…it’s fabulous that a magazine picked up your talent ;o)
Great days in the kitchen are highly due to our monthly cycle
I’m convinced. LOL
Can’t wait to put these pancakes in front of Hubby for a special breakfast occasion ;o)
Ciao for now,
Claudia
Congrats on being featured; and those pancakes are calling my name-look so decadent
Do your people call you Lo? Or is it a full on Lorraine? I could see us giggling and cooking together. You continue to delight.
That pancakes are so beautiful! And congratulations for the article! You deserve it
Cheers,
Gera
Well done on the mention in the Swedish mag!! Oh and the pancakes look great too.
these pancakes look excellent – I love the filling with ground walnuts and who doesn’t love a chocolate sauce – though I would be tempted to go down the chocolate and cream route
that is great to be featured in a swedish mag – makes you a truly international blogger
i am drooling about your pan cake but I want my breakfast now!
Mmm, chocolate and pancakes.. YUM!
I’m doing my catch up of NQN blog, so apologies for my late Congrats!! That’s fantastic news Lorraine. You keep going from strength to strength!
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