Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day, is tomorrow (4 March). It is an important day for many Christians which involves solemn self-reflection in preparation for Lent. It is also a last chance opportunity to feast before the Lent fast. So if you have even the slimmest of Christian faith or tradition it is a great excuse to indulge in pancakes, the traditional food of Shrove Tuesday, after the appropriate self-reflection of course! For me, one of my biggest sins would be gluttony, so there is a certain amount irony in this.

Shrove Tuesday isn’t a tradition that I grew up with but my son loves pancakes. He is only three years old and is at that stage where I just want him to eat something so it’s likely I will be taking the opportunity to make some pancakes tomorrow.

My pancakes are light and fluffy on the inside and lightly crisp on the outside. At the moment we’re enjoying pancakes with blueberries and maple syrup.

What do you eat with your pancakes? Do you observe Shrove Tuesday?

Pancakes
makes 6 large

1 cup plain (all purpose flour
pinch salt
1 egg (or egg substitute*)
1 1/4 cups milk (any sort)
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder

I usually make pancakes as a Sunday morning treat. I am not a morning person and I find using complicated gadgets like measuring cups a bit beyond me at that time of day so I make the batter the night before. I mix the ingredients – all except for the baking powder – in a large pyrex jug and place it in the fridge.

In the morning I remove the batter from the fridge and stir in the baking powder. By the time I have made coffee, collected the newspaper and heated the frypans the batter is ready to be cooked.

I use two frypans to cook the pancakes. Usually I will go to great lengths to avoid any extra washing up but in this situation washing an extra frypan takes considerably less time than cooking the pancakes one by one. While my frypans are non stick I do use a generous amount of oil – preferably rice bran oil – to achieve a crisp exterior.

With the batter in a large jug it is easy to pour the batter straight into the pan. By pouring in a single steady stream the batter pools in the pan into a nice round shape. This is far easier, and less messy, than trying to use a ladle.

Once the batter bubbles and is visibly brown around the lower edges it is ready to be flipped. The second side usually doesn’t take as long to cook.

I will add more oil to the frypan between each pancake.

Serve as soon as possible with your favourite toppings.

*I used Orgran Egg Replacer. It is ideal to use in recipes which only require one egg, such as pancakes, waffles and muffins. It is convenient to keep in the pantry and useful in this current egg shortage.