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Cheesecake pancakes, roasted rhubarb and orange syrup

I’ve been eagerly awaiting the new season crop of forced pink Yorkshire rhubarb since Christmas. I find it totally irresistible – both the colour and flavour are just exquisite, providing me with a month or so of beautiful blushing pink puddings.

Rhubarb’s intense sourness needs countering with plenty of sugar to draw out its fruitiness. Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved dropping chunks of raw rhubarb into granular white sugar to make a sherbety treat; sour and citric and crunchy and sweet all at once. The sharpness of rhubarb means it is delicious paired with something sweet and creamy, so these cheesecake pancakes are the perfect accompaniment. I wanted to make a pancake that had all the rich flavour of a cheesecake, with some definite nuggets of cheese, but which is still light enough to be able to eat a few! So I used a combination of both ricotta and cottage cheeses for the base, with some lightly whisked egg whites folded in to give a nice fluffy texture. Read more