Pancake Tuesday

Pancake Tuesday is almost upon us and already supermarket shelves are saturated with pre-made batter mixes.  I have even seen competitions on Facebook offering same as a competition prize.

Each to their own but pancake batter is ridiculously easy to make.  It is a very simple recipe for a child to prepare also with a little supervision in the background.  That flour can go everywhere.

I always double the batter mix as my lot love pancakes.  It’s Pancake Tuesday and Thursday in our house every week and has been for several years.  If I want to score extra brownie points and get them into their uniforms quicker in the morning, pancakes for breakfast are an excellent incentive.

This is my basic pancake batter mix. 

Half pint of milk.

One egg.

Splash of vanilla extract.

*4 oz plain flour.

That’s all.  Easy peasy.  Couldn’t be simpler.  It takes less than ten minutes to put together as your pan is heating up.

Whisk the egg with vanilla extract before adding milk.  Then in goes the flour.  I don’t bother sieving.  Whisk it really well until all lumps have broken up and decant into an easy pouring jug.

I use a non-stick pan but a little dot of butter is all that’s needed for cooking.  Just be ready to pour in some batter quickly as the butter will burn.

So how do you know when to flip?  I flip on a daily basis but if it’s pancakes you mean (hardy har) wait until the little bubbles that appear on your cooking pancake pop.  Then you can flip, if you think you’re hard enough, or if like me, you’re a big old scardey cat, use a fish slice to just turn it over. 

Lift out onto a plate and repeat steps for the next pancake.  This amount of batter should yield 4/6   pancakes, depending on the size of your pan and how thin/thick you like your pancakes.

So how do you eat yours?   We keep it very simple and traditional here.  We like them sprinkled with sugar, a thin scrape of chocolate spread and the time honoured topping of sugar and lemon.

You can go savoury with bacon and cheese.  Some people wrap scrambled eggs in theirs.  

And if you have a sweet tooth I suppose you could do worse than strawberries and cream.

Whatever way you eat yours, give the homemade basic pancake batter a try.  Happy Pancake Tuesday everyone and let me know how you get on. 

 *for those with gluten intolerance buckwheat flour is an ideal alternative.