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A romantic cooking session, or a food fight with the kids — however you are spending your Pancake Tuesday, it’s always a great excuse to indulge our collective sweet tooth. After all, today is the last day you can pig out freely before Lent arrives — if you’re planning to give up the junk food for the foreseeable (well, until Easter), this is your chance for a last hurrah.
If you’re wondering how the pros navigate Pancake Tuesday, the answers vary. Some stick to the traditional route, others experiment a little — but these little tips and tricks from the professionals will make your pancakes better than ever.
Adding baking powder to your pancake mix, or using self-raising flour instead of plain, will add volume to your mix — perfect for spongey, thick, American-style pancakes. However, it should be no more than one teaspoon of baking powder to every 100g of plain flour, otherwise you’ll test it in your pancake.
If you want to switch up the flavour of your pancakes, Jamie Oliver recommends swapping for wholemeal flour. It will give the mixture a nuttier taste.
Fancy a savoury solution to the recipe? Pancakes are the perfect binder for lots of different ingredients — leave the fruit behind, and go for ham and Gruyere cheese for this recipe.
Pancakes may seem easy to get right, but as Mary Berry demonstrates, you only actually need three ingredients for the perfect easy pancake — plain flour, one egg and one egg yolk, and milk.
Blumenthal is known for his wild and wonderful recipes but his pancakes are relatively tame. Lemon curd will give it a nice kick, but the real trick is to leave the pancake batter to chill in the fridge for four hours to set. Thick, luxurious pancakes await.