Thin Gingerbread Pancakes

To make gingerbread pancakes, you will need a fairly standard set of ingredients and spices. All the spices - cloves, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg - should be dried and ground. If you can't find ground cloves, it's fine to prepare without them. When buying kefir, pay attention to the weight. Often it is around 430-450 grams. In that case, you can simply reduce the amount of flour by one tablespoon. With this amount of ingredients, I get 11-12 pancakes with a diameter of 20-21 cm.

Pour the kefir into a saucepan and heat it on the stove until it starts to curdle. The kefir will curdle, and whey will appear. You can also heat the kefir in the microwave.

Pour kefir into a bowl, add spices, sugar, salt, and baking soda. Stir. The soda will immediately react with the kefir, causing the mixture to foam up. The spices will give the mixture a brownish hue.

Now add flour to the foamy mixture and stir until smooth. You can sift the flour if desired.

By this time, the pancake batter will no longer be too hot. At this moment, add eggs. Stir again.

Wash the orange and grate the zest using a fine grater, avoiding the white pith. Add the zest to the batter, mix well, cover the bowl with a towel, and let the batter rest for 10-15 minutes.

Then bake the pancakes. You will immediately sense the spicy aroma while baking. Heat a frying pan well, greasing it with refined vegetable oil. Bake the pancakes over low to medium heat. The bottom of the pancake should brown but not burn, and the top of the pancake batter should set and not be liquid.

When the top of the pancake sets, flip the pancake and brown the other side. To prevent the pancake from sticking to the spatula, periodically grease the spatula with oil. Also, periodically grease the pan between baking the pancakes with oil.

The pancakes turn out quite thin, tender, holey, and spicy. You can serve the pancakes simply by greasing them with oil. Or with sweet fillings of your choice. These pancakes are equally delicious when served cold.