Sluttishly Sweet: Chocolate and Guinness Pancakes

When it comes to Pancake day I like mine wafer thin, piled high and doused in lemon and sugar. Call me boring, I can handle it. But this year I have turned to one of my favourite cakes for this years pancake day inspiration – Guinness and Chocolate cake. I also love the drama of the black vs white. The 'black' comes in the form of a standard American pancake batter but with dark cocoa and Guinness. The 'white' comes in the form of a cream cheese sauce.

If you don't like Guinness, don't worry. The Guinness takes away the sickly sweetness of pure chocolate flavour and leaves a dark chocolate undertone with a slight bitterness that goes really nicely with the milky sauce.

Black and White Pancakes (makes enough for 2 really greedy people)
You'll need:

• 180g self raising flour
• 4 tbsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp baking powder
• a pinch of salt
• 4 tbsp caster sugar
• 4 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 egg
• 200ml Guinness
• 60ml milk

For the cream cheese sauce: 

• 100g cream cheese (I used Philadelphia)
• 100ml milk
• 100ml cream
• 2 tbsp icing sugar

Make it!

• Sift the flour, baking powder, caster sugar, salt and cocoa powder into a bowl and mix well.
• Beat the egg in a separate bowl. Mix in the melted butter, Guinness and milk. You should get a lively frothy batter.
• Heat a non-stick pan until really hot. Add a little butter and wait for it to sizzle. Ladle in a spoonful of batter, cook it until you see bubbles on the surface, then flip.
• Carry on until you have a big old pile, keeping them warm in the oven until you've used up all the batter.

For the sauce:

• Mix the cream cheese, milk and cream together. Sift in the icing sugar and beat until smooth and silky.