Ricotta Hotcakes with Honeycomb Butter (Granger & Co. Style)

Ricotta Hotcakes with Honeycomb Butter (Granger & Co. Style)

It’s painfully obvious that I love breakfast. Cooking it, eating it, photographing it – all brilliant. I find that I enjoy food so much more if I’ve made it myself and breakfast is just one of those meals that’s not so demanding to cook for. Once all that mixing, measuring, frying and flipping is done, I appreciate the effort and ingredients that I put into making the dish. It’s different at restaurants though as breakfast menus can be super standard (I mean, I’ve only seen a breakfast burrito on one menu in London!?). It really takes something special to make me love a brunch dish at a restaurant so much that I want to replicate it at home.

Ricotta Hotcakes with Honeycomb Butter (Granger & Co. Style)

Step in these ricotta hotcakes with honeycomb butter from Granger & Co, the restaurant chain owned by Bill Granger.

So that was that: I invited my friend round for a test trial and Friday brunch was planned.

Ricotta Hotcakes with Honeycomb Butter (Granger & Co. Style)

We ate pancakes, took photos and styled butter with ice cream scoops (it looks so cute, right!?). I had to keep being told by my friend whilst writing out the recipe to stop calling them pancakes and I obliged because they really are not like any pancake I’ve ever eaten.

Unlike regular pancake batters where flour forms the bulk, these hotcakes get their body from ricotta and whipped egg whites. It keeps them sublimely light and tender but as I also said this morning whilst digging into a thick stack “They’re SO filling” (it’s all that protein!). With the ricotta, I find it’s best if you only partially mix it in. That way you get little nuggets of creamy ricotta every so often 🙂

Turns out my suspicions were right about the honeycomb butter, it’s literally crushed honeycomb candy mixed with unsalted butter. For the sake of convenience I bought a Crunchie bar, cut off the chocolate coating and used the honeycomb from that. It may not seem like this butter is necessary (I probably would have skipped past it had I not tried it at the restaurant) but I adore it here, adding a hint of vanilla to each bite.

Ricotta Hotcakes with Honeycomb Butter (Granger & Co. Style)

Recipe adapted slightly from Bill Granger’s recipe (found here)

Ricotta Hotcakes with Honeycomb Butter

4.70 from 23 votes
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Ingredients

For the honeycomb butter:

  • One 40 g Crunchie bar , (or 20 g /~1 oz of honeycomb candy)
  • 50 g unsalted butter
  • 1 tsp honey

For the hotcake batter:

  • 4 eggs , , separated
  • 3/4 cup (185 ml) milk, any kind
  • 1 cup (125 g) plain flour
  • 1 heaped tsp baking powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 1/3 cups (300 g/10.7 oz) ricotta

Instructions

To make the honeycomb butter:

  • Cut the Crunchie bar into chunks and then use a sharp knife to slice off the outer layer of chocolate (you only want the middle honeycomb part). Place the honeycomb into a sandwich bag and bash with a rolling pin so that it's the texture of coarse breadcrumbs. Pour into a bowl along with the butter and honey. Cream together until well mixed then form into a log and wrap in clingfilm (or form individual scoops using a small, mechanical ice cream scoop). Chill until needed.

To make the hotcakes

  • In a large jug, stir together the egg yolks, milk, flour, baking powder and salt with a fork. Add the ricotta to the jug and mix just a little (seriously like 3 stirs; you want tasty ricotta lumps). In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff. Pour the contents of the jug into the large bowl and fold in using a rubber spatula. There should be some lumps of ricotta throughout.
  • Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat with enough vegetable oil to coat the pan. Scoop about 1/3 cup of batter into the pan to make 1 hotcake (depending on the size of your pan you can cook around 2 or 3 at a time). Use a metal spatula to check when the underside of the hotcake is golden, then flip and cook on the other side until golden as well. Remove to a plate and serve warm with the honeycomb butter, maple syrup and fresh fruit.
Tried this recipe?Let me know how it went! Mention @izyhossack or tag #topwithcinnamon!

60 thoughts on “Ricotta Hotcakes with Honeycomb Butter (Granger & Co. Style)”

  1. OH MY!!!! These look amazing!!! Can’t wait to try…they look so heavenly and fluffy!! xx

  2. Ah yes–pancakes, you can do no wrong. Those look great! Love the honeycomb butter you used as topping 🙂

    • It’s so friggin good. I’m going to put it on my toast tomorrow morning, wahoo! Haha yeah you can get honeycomb sometimes but it’s more like one of those bespoke things that you can only get online or in fancy chocolatiers. Crunchie bars are everywhere and cost like 60p so I just went for that instead 🙂 (Plus I got to eat the chocolate from the outside…always a bonus!)

  3. Seriously craving a stack of these hotcakes right now.. and that honeycomb butter sounds divine. Have to make the recipe!

  4. Oh wow, these hotcakes are totally awesome – love the Crunchie bar element especially:-) It’s great when you can re-create a recipe you’ve enjoyed out:-)

  5. everything about this screams MAKE ME FOR BREAKFAST TOMORROW!!! I am realizing that I make pancakes (slash hotcakes) far too infrequently and you may just have started me down a new path of obsession! so in other words, gorgeous work, as always 🙂

  6. That honeycomb butter is calling my name! And I freaking live for ricotta hotcakes. LIVE FOR THEM.

  7. Oh my god, these look delicious! I love ricotta pancakes (well, really any pancake, let’s be real), and these look so wonderfully fluffy and light! And that honeycomb butter? Fantastic! Quick query though: Do you think you could use real honeycomb instead of candied? I have easy access to real honeycomb, but I’m not sure if it would work properly with the butter or if the measurements would have to be tweaked a little? Great recipe!

    • I’m not sure about the use of real honeycomb in place of the candy as, having never used the fresh stuff myself, I can’t tell whether it would mix into the butter. Maybe try mixing some scraped vanilla beans and an extra squeeze of honey/caramel sauce to mimic the flavour?

  8. OoOo yummy pancakes! These look incredibly fluffy and who wouldn’t want honeycomb butter?! Pinned this recipe 🙂

  9. pancakes, honeycomb and butter! oh my! what a lovely post! might I ask where you got your crockery and cutlery from also? i’m guessing second hand, but it’s beautiful! thanks for a wonderful post izy (again!) x

  10. Can you please stop making pancakes look incredifreakirresistibly gorgeous?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?

    No wait. Don’t. Stop.

    *heart eyes for days*

  11. Izy come to Sydney! We have original “Bill’s” restaurant that serve the famous pancakes and fritters with all the trimmings.
    I am all for impromptu brunches with friends. The word pancakes seems to make anyone instantly popular esp. of served with ice cream!

  12. Holy cow and ostriches, that sounds fluffy beyond belief. I’m in brunch love! I’ll be awaiting my hotcakes Friday brunch invite anytime now xoxo

  13. Breakfast is my favourite meal of the day, and these hotcakes would be just perfect for any morning!

  14. i’ve only got 250g of ricotta, so how would i adapt this to the recipe? would have i have to cut down on the flour and other stuff? please can you help, thank youuuu!

    beautiful pictures + these look amazing!!

    • maybe try making 3/4 of the recipe?
      225 g ricotta
      3 eggs
      93 g flour
      140 ml milk
      1 level tsp pf baking powder
      pinch of salt

  15. Is there anything that sounds more delicious and inviting than “honeycomb butter?” Right now, I don’t think so 🙂

  16. YES! These look incredible!!! And that honeycomb butter is blowing my mind right now. I can’t wait to try these.

  17. Crunchie-flavoured butter? Wow. I put honeycomb in ice cream sometimes and it softens overnight to become all gooey and caramel-like so can imagine the same deal happens with the butter. Amazing. Plus ‘honeycomb’ makes it sound healthy, so you can have more, right? 😉

  18. A CRUNCHIE BAR! My still my heart. My favorite. After I realized I could buy McVities here in the States, I turned my attention to hoarding these on any trip across the border. Also, just so happens I made some honeycomb candy yesterday. Me and these were obviously meant to be.

  19. Hi Izy, I’m in love with your recipes!!! Everything soooo great!!! 🙂
    I’m not sure that here in Brazil there are crunchie bars like the ones you use…
    Any sugestion to replace them?

    Wish you all the best,
    Lena

  20. AHH these look incredible. Wow. Must give these a try sometime soon. And beautiful photos too, love your hair in that one pic, what a cool colour!

  21. I read this nodding, breakfast is my favourite meal out but so many places have exactly the same menu and in London the prices are often ridiculous for what is essentially eggs on toast. However, there are more than a few gems about, who serve unusual and delicious brunches but I’ve never seen a breakfast burrito on a menu in London!

  22. These look Amazing!! I”m having a brunch this weekend and am definitely making these! yum yum!

  23. 5 stars
    After our brunch at Granger & Co. I immediately started looking for the recipe and glad I found it! Thank you <3 they will be our alltime favorites.

  24. 5 stars
    These are the best ricotta pancakes I have ever had. They are insanely delicious, fluffy and literally perfection. I followed the recipe exactly as is, and I got ten perfect hotcakes. Will make them again ASAP. ThNk you for the best brunch recipe ever!

  25. 5 stars
    Fabulous recipe! Pancakes are so fluffy and tasty. I only had almond milk on hand and it worked perfect.

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