Jimi Famurewa’s recipe for puff-puff pancakes
Efteling is a fairytale-themed, 73-year-old amusement park in the south of the Netherlands that, after two consecutive years of visits, has become an acute obsession among my family.We love the vaguely folk-horror animatronic trees, witches and giant sea monsters lurking within a labyrinthine real forest.We love the anthropomorphised talking bins that plead (in a haunting, perpetual sing-song) for crumpled pieces of paper to be shoved into their suction-powered mouths.We love the inventive rides that, variously, judder along rattling wooden tracks, plunge cursed pirate ships into water, or nudge gondolas serenely through sylvan scenes of bum-flashing goblins showering beneath waterfalls.But our very favourite thing about the place might well be the poffertjes stand, a perennially busy kiosk where exhausted families gather for dinky paper boats filled with these yeast-puffed and sugar-dusted miniature buckwheat pancakes that are a Dutch institution.
Made to order in a vast, uniformly indented pan, speared through their light, custardy middles with toothpicks and served with a thick swoop of pale butter, they always prompt an acute, grunting sort of shared pleasure and succour.Poffertjes (pronounced a little like “poffeh-tyuss”) are the dangled prize for the four of us; a reliable salve to the jittery overstimulation-loop that only themed leisure environments can provide.When we cajoled the blubbering eight-year-old on to a haunted house attraction that then promptly broke down (I imagine this tale will be tearfully described to a therapist one day), a shared portion of a dozen, ethereally warm poffertjes was how we chose both to apologise and collectively soothe our jangled nerves.Flash forward to a year or so after my first encounter with poffertjes, and I was back in our south-east London kitchen, trying to contrive a way to make Nigerian puff-puff without deep-frying.This, for the uninitiated, is a quite different, almost-soundalike snack that nonetheless delivers a similarly potent hit of pleasure.
West African in origin (and also known as bofrot), puff-puff are the bulbous, gratifyingly chewy Nigerian version of the yeasted drop doughnuts that many different food cultures seem to have a beloved version of.Puff-puff are peddled at Lagos roadsides, and are often whipped up to toast births and commemorate deaths.They are a spongey, sugar-glistened mainstay among the “small chop” snacks at a lavish Nigerian party; the thing my mother rarely leaves the house without the rudimentary ingredients for.Ask about the oil levels in her car and you could easily be referring to the giant bottle of Crisp ‘N Dry that has permanent residence in her boot.Puff-puff are always deep-fried: a sticky, aerated dough that’s plopped into a generously poured, roiling pan of oil with either a wooden spoon or (if you are a proper West African matriarch) a dextrous hand.
This wouldn’t do for my specific puff-puff purposes – a cooking demonstration where deep-frying wasn’t possible – so I had to think laterally.And that is when I thought of poffertjes or, rather, a hybrid version of puff-puff pancakes, too good to be eaten only at breakfast or, for that matter, in the hallucinatory wilds of a Dutch amusement park.Serves 84 tsp dried active yeast (about 13g) 120g granulated sugar, plus 1 tbsp extra 350ml warm water, or warm milk for a deeper flavour380g plain flour½ tbsp salt ¼ tsp ground cardamom½ tsp grated nutmeg Neutral oil, for frying75g icing sugar½ tsp ground cinnamonWhisk the dried active yeast with a tablespoon of granulated sugar and the warm water, then set aside for 10 minutes, until fully bloomed and foamy.Meanwhile, in a large bowl combine the plain flour, salt, the remaining 120g granulated sugar, ground cardamom and grated nutmeg.Make a well in the middle, pour in the foamed yeast mix and stir to make a smooth batter.
Cover with a couple of clean, damp tea towels and leave at room temperature for about 45 minutes, or until the dough has doubled in size (it should be quite wet and tacky).Put a dribble of neutral oil in a wide, nonstick frying pan on a medium-high heat, then, working in batches, fry tablespoon-sized dollops of the mixture for two to three minutes per side, until puffed into chubby, golden-brown pucks.Set aside on a large, warmed plate while you cook the rest.Finish by mixing the icing sugar and cinnamon, then dust this mix over the top of the pancakes with a sieve.Eat as they are or with jam, curd, chocolate spread or chopped seasonal fruit.
Picky, by Jimi Famurewa, is published by Hodder & Stoughton at £20,To order a copy for £18, visit guardianbookshop,com
Waymo announces that its robotaxis will drive freeways for the first time
Alphabet’s Waymo said on Wednesday that it would begin offering robotaxi rides that use freeways across San Francisco, Los Angeles and Phoenix, a first for the Google subsidiary as it steps up expansion amid global and domestic competition in the self-driving industry.Freeway rides will initially be available to early-access users, Waymo said. “When a freeway route is meaningfully faster, they can be matched with a freeway trip, providing quicker, smoother, and more efficient rides,” it said.Waymo, which already operates in parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, is also extending operations to San Jose, including Mineta San Jose international airport, the second airport in its service area after Phoenix Sky Harbor.The move comes as Tesla expands its robotaxi service with safety monitors and drivers, and Zoox – backed by Amazon – offers free robotaxi rides on and around the Las Vegas Strip
A tax roadmap for electric cars | Letters
Rachel Reeves’s proposal to introduce a pay-per-mile tax levy on electric vehicles is idiotic, especially suggesting that hybrid vehicles will have a reduced rate and still pay the usual road tax (Rachel Reeves considering pay-per-mile tax for electric vehicles in budget, 6 November). Furthermore, requiring drivers to predict their yearly mileage in advance and then pay or reclaim the difference for actual mileage depending on whether they have underestimated or overestimated it is too cumbersome. If the DVLA is to oversee the collection/repayment system, it will undoubtedly need to recruit more staff or outsource the arrangement, with all the attendant pitfalls that would entail.The fairest way for the taxation of all motorists is to abolish the road tax and introduce a road toll system, as used on the Dartford crossing and the M6 toll road. Automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) would need to be an essential feature
Tech companies and UK child safety agencies to test AI tools’ ability to create abuse images
Tech companies and child protection agencies will be given the power to test whether artificial intelligence tools can produce child abuse images under a new UK law.The announcement was made as a safety watchdog revealed that reports of AI-generated child sexual abuse material [CSAM] have more than doubled in the past year from 199 in 2024 to 426 in 2025.Under the change, the government will give designated AI companies and child safety organisations permission to examine AI models – the underlying technology for chatbots such as ChatGPT and image generators such as Google’s Veo 3 – and ensure they have safeguards to prevent them from creating images of child sexual abuse.Kanishka Narayan, the minister for AI and online safety, said the move was “ultimately about stopping abuse before it happens”, adding: “Experts, under strict conditions, can now spot the risk in AI models early.”The changes have been introduced because it is illegal to create and possess CSAM, meaning that AI developers and others cannot create such images as part of a testing regime
Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine sign voice deal with AI company
Oscar-winning actors Matthew McConaughey and Michael Caine have both signed a deal with the AI audio company ElevenLabs.The New York-based company can now create AI-generated versions of their voices as part of a bid to solve a “key ethical challenge” in the artificial intelligence industry’s alliance with Hollywood.McConaughey, who has also invested in the company and collaborated with it since 2022, will now allow ElevenLabs to translate his newsletter, Lyrics of Livin’, into a Spanish-language audio version using his voice.In a statement, the Dallas Buyers Club actor said he was “impressed” by ElevenLabs and wanted the partnership to help him “reach and connect with even more people”.ElevenLabs is also launching the Iconic Voices Marketplace, which will allow brands to partner with the company and use officially licensed celebrity voices for AI-generated usage
John Tymukas obituary
My brother-in-law John Tymukas, who has died aged 73, was a structural engineer on many of London’s infrastructure projects from the 1990s onwards, including Canning Town station, Heathrow Terminal 5, Glaxo Smithkline HQ and Crossrail Bond Street.Born in Adelaide, South Australia, John was the son of Kostas, a Lithuanian refugee and engineer, and Kathleen (nee Donohoe), the daughter of Irish emigrants and a former clerk. He was the eldest of six siblings. John completed his education in Brisbane at Downlands school and the Queensland Institute of Technology, where he took a four-year engineering degree course and worked in Australia before heading in 1990 to London to work on contracts with engineering companies such as SKB and WSP.An avid traveller, he covered Europe extensively, making contact with Lithuanian and Irish family members and discovering family history unknown in Australia until he made the links
ChatGPT violated copyright law by ‘learning’ from song lyrics, German court rules
A court in Munich has ruled that OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT violated German copyright laws by using hits from top-selling musicians to train its language models in what creative industry advocates described as a landmark European ruling.The Munich regional court sided in favour of Germany’s music rights society GEMA, which said ChatGPT had harvested protected lyrics by popular artists to “learn” from them.The collecting society GEMA, which manages the rights of composers, lyricists and music publishers and has approximately 100,000 members, filed the case against OpenAI in November 2024.The lawsuit was seen as a key European test case in a campaign to stop AI scraping of creative output. OpenAI can appeal against the decision
Jimi Famurewa’s recipe for puff-puff pancakes
Polpa position: budget tinned tomatoes score well in Choice taste test
Three plant-based chocolate mousse recipes by Philip Khoury
Don’t pour that olive brine down the drain – it’s a flavour bomb | Waste not
Jelly’s back! Here are three worth making – and three that should wobble off to the bin
Australian supermarket wheat crackers taste test: ‘All the reviewers knew which one was the real deal’