This Scotch Pancakes Stack with ice cream and whisky marmalade sauce is a winter dessert that works well for pancake day or even Burns Night, if you celebrate that. Doing so seems increasingly popular even if you’re not Scottish, anything to get us through January eh? This recipe was originally commissioned by Morrison’s Supermarket as part of a bloggers pancake challenge but has been updated in 2025 to remove outdated information.
My pancake recipes were originally on the Morrison’s website but as these have since been taken down, you’ll find links to these at the bottom of this post.
I have tagged this recipe as breakfast although it depends how hardcore you are whether you want whisky sauce at breakfast time. Certainly marmalade with whisky is a common grocery item in the UK so I’m not the first person to come up with this. We like sauce in our sauce in Britain!
Scotch pancakes are smaller than crepes, they include a raising agent and some sugar. They are easier to flip over than crepes so if you lack confidence tossing your pancakes they are a good place to start. I even managed to make them with one hand whilst filming with my digital camera. Watch my short clip here:
Back in 2010, I also made my cookery video debut! I said then I wasn’t sure how long it would be until I managed another one. In those days I described my mobile phone as only capable of rudimentary filming facilities but things have moved on!
“And hell I’m not recording myself with Bree Van Der Kamp hair and spotty apron until I’ve lost at least another stone (13lb now since New Year and counting).”
My dream of a Nigella Lawson style kitchen set up like film studio never quite came true although my intentions to lose weight to look better on camera happily did come true – albeit some years later.
It always amuses me when this little Scotch pancakes video recorded on the hoof, has a flurry of views every Shrove Tuesday. 7000 views and counting!
Frying your Scotch Pancakes Stack
To make a Scotch pancakes stack you’ll need a frying pan. Get it nice and hot then pour your batter in “satsuma sized” blobs. You can see above that they spread out less than traditional French crepes. You definitely don’t want to swirl the batter about, let it sit there to cook for 30-45 seconds. Then using a spatula, flip the blob over and give it a similar length of time so both sides are done.
I always notice that the first few Scotch pancakes take longer but by the time you’re halfway through, the pan has heated up more and they cook quickly.
Preparing Pink Grapefruit segments
Trimming the pith and skin off your pink grapefruit segments make seem a faff but I promise it’s worth it for presentation purposes. Furthermore, it tastes better. Use a sharp knife to trim and peel the skin away from the pulp of the grapefruit segment.
I was specifically asked to create a recipe with pink grapefruit but if the sourness of grapefruit is not your bag, this recipe works equally well with oranges.
Basic Scotch Pancake Recipe
Equipment
- 1 frying pan
Ingredients
- 150 g plain flour
- 1 tbsp baking powder
- ½ tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 pinch salt
- 15 g caster sugar (superfine baking sugar)
- 1 large eggs
- 250 ml semi skimmed milk
- 1 tbsp butter
Instructions
- Sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda, salt and sugar into a bowl.
- Pour the milk into a hand blender beaker. Beat in the egg. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, pour this into the milk and egg mixture and stir quickly to stop butter solidifying in the cold milk. Scrape in the dry ingredients and beat in with a fork.
- Make the batter smoother by giving it a quick whisk with the hand blender. If your blender beaker hasn't got a spout, decant the mixture into a plastic jug for ease of pouring onto your frying pan.
- Melt a small knob of butter onto a non-stick frying pan over a moderate to high heat. Use a silicon brush to wipe the butter all over the surface of the pan. When the pan is hot and covered in the melted butter, pour over some batter, around the same amount equivalent to the diameter of a satsuma. Do not swirl the batter around the pan, leave it in a round blob.
- You can do two or three pancakes like this at once, depending on the size of your pan. Do not crowd them though, else they'll merge into each other. This batter quantity is enough for 12+ Scotch pancakes.
- Allow to cook for 30-45 seconds. Ease a silicon spatula under the edge of the pancake and gradually as it cooks, ease the spatula all the way underneath to check it is loose enough to turn over.
- It should take 60-90 seconds before you can flip the pancake over with the spatula. The surface should be golden brown all over with a lighter almost lacy pattern around the edge. Allow the pancake to cook on the other side for around 60 seconds. You can peep underneath to see how brown it is, aim for a speckled effect akin to leopard’s spots.
- Scotch pancakes are best served immediately although you can keep them in the fridge for 2-3 days and reheat in the microwave.
Notes
Scotch Pancake Stack with Ice Cream and Whisky Marmalade Sauce
Equipment
- 1 frying pan
Ingredients
- 1 pink grapefruit segmented, skins, seeds and pith removed
- 50 g marmalade
- 2 tbsp whisky
- 5 tbsp water
- 250 ml vanilla ice cream
- 12 Scotch pancakes already made, or shop bought (if you must)
Instructions
- (Make your Scotch pancakes if you haven’t already, using the Scotch Pancakes recipe also in this post.)
- In a small saucepan, over a low to medium heat, melt the marmalade with the water and whisky. It should melt down to a thick orange syrup. Do not boil as the water will quickly boil away leaving you with marmalade once more. Leave on a low heat. Add more liquid (whisky or water!) if it gets too thick by the time you use it.
- To serve, stack alternative layers of Scotch pancake with a heaped tablespoon's worth of vanilla ice cream. Allow 3 pancakes and 2 layers of ice cream per person.
- Squash the stacks down gently with your hand. Top each stack with a few pink grapefruit segments. Drizzle over some marmalade sauce. Serve immediately.
Notes
More pancake recipes using winter seasonal ingredients
This Scotch Pancakes Stack with Ice Cream and Whisky Marmalade Sauce was originally one of my entries to the Morrison’s Seasonal Pancake challenge.
Along with three other food bloggers I had to create pancake recipes using clementines, hazelnuts, pink grapefruit and rhubarb. Today’s recipe was the pink grapefruit one, and these are my other pancake recipes:
Pancakes with Hot Fudge Sauce and Chopped Hazelnuts
Spicy Pork Pancakes with Rhubarb using sweet and sour Chinese style Hoi Sin flavours
Chocolate Crepes Suzette with amaretto, the chocolate filling being a twist on a traditional French favourite.
More alternatives to traditional pancakes
And from some friends I can also recommend these alternatives to traditional pancakes.
Polish potato pancakes (Coffee and Vanilla)
Emperor’s Pancakes (Cooksister)
That's a great video clip Sarah, and you managed to do it with one hand – impressive!
The pancakes look good, bet you're all pancaked out now, lol!
I love your pancakes, they look really good!
Great job with the video Sarah! I love the grapefruit in this pancake recipe.
Well done on the one-handed flip while filming! I had some scotch-type pancakes just this morning thanks to my sister, though I would have liked it even better if they'd had some of that whiskey marmalade sauce 🙂
Thats a great video Sarah…looks wonderful:)
Congrats to the winner and congrats sarah on loosing the weight!
I managed to make pancakes a couple of weeks ago but stil have not gotten round to posting it. However, they are noway near this in brilliance. I only wish I did not "virtually" wake up to this 😉
Xx
Congratulations to Heavenly Housewife! She's as fabulous as these pancakes! My oh my, I'm trying to stave off the time between now and dinner and it's not helping hehe! 😛
Sarah, your pancakes are mouthwatering! You're torturing me with pancakes again! I forgot about my craving since your last post about pancakes and now you make me for crave them all over again! LOL!
I need to try those! Yummy!
You are a flipping genius! (see what I did there!)
@nicisme Yes pancaked out although my husband is still pining for more on Shrove Tuesdsay
@mamatkamal @sari @nina @ashley Thanks!
@dailyspud @lorraine On a school day! I didn't mean to corrupt everyone!
@bethany There's still time to "flip out"
@faithy Wait til you see the 4th and final one
@deerbaby I love a good pun and thanks for the compliment!
Wow, those are gorgeous! I wish I had a stack right now!!
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay Moi! How fabulous that I won 😀 (yes, I am totally shameful).
What a gorgeous presentation of pancakes. Now I know what I want to make with my goodies 🙂
*kisses* HH
Yay that is so cool! Never thought of putting video clips on a blog before, well done you 🙂
Morwenna xo
Wow! These pancakes look as if they belong on the menu of a posh dining establishment in London. 🙂
Love the sweet/citrus of the pancakes. I haven't had grapefruit in ages…………
Congrats HH.
Loving the recent pancake posts – I'm a huge pancake person, and you're making me crave for them! 😛
Love the video! How fab! You've got one of the TV/Video/Telephone voices – oh yes! Can I request more videos please? =) x
Gorgeous! I love the combination of flavours (and brave you, flipping with one hand and filming with the other!!)
These look delicious. I enjoyed the write up and have the ingredients written down to make them for the approaching pancake day.