Tuesday 4 March 2014

Pancake Day

Yes I know, we cheated!  But I am already armed with a list of excuses as to why we didn't attempt to mix our own pancake batter, including Simon was working late and didn't get home until 9:00 pm, we're pretty lazy and neither of us have attempted to make pancakes before. 




































Pancake Day is something that we always celebrated back home in Norfolk, with three hungry kids and a husband my poor Mum would spend hours standing over the hob cooking up pancake after pancake.  She'd cook to order making sure that we all had our turn and got fresh hot pancakes delivered straight to our plates.  Being lovers of food we always managed to eat a ridiculous amount each which meant by the time we were done poor Mum didn't really fancy eating any herself.

When I moved to  London I never really celebrated Shrove Tuesday unless I felt like speeding out of work at 5:30 pm and joining the long queue of people standing outside My Old Dutch (anyone reading in London should go and check them out, they serve pancakes as big as your plate).

So this year I was determined that Simon and I would be celebrating our first Pancake Day living together by honouring the tradition and enjoying some as our evening snack.

Despite there being only two of us we went a little crazy with the toppings!   I chose black cherries and cream as that's what my Mum always did for us and then I also insisted on getting some lemon for a more traditional lemon and sugar combination.  Simon chose a classic, Maple Syrup.

Now we come to the part where it all went a bit wrong.  I bought the wrong kind of cherries!  Mum always served our pancakes with bright red, thick sugary cherries which I'm realising now was probably pie filling.   The can that I picked up ended up being cherries with stones sitting in slightly sugary water.   I was a little gutted as I was very excited to introduce Simon to my favourite pancake filling and it demonstrates yet again that no matter how hard I try I will never be a domestic goddess.

Cooking the pancakes proved to be a little more difficult than we'd imagined, our first few attempts looked like scrambled eggs and Simon was having a great time swearing at the frying pan.  It took us about four goes before we finally managed to get our pancakes to form a respectable circle (ish) shape.

I've seen so many beautiful photographs today of people's perfectly formed pancakes, decorated like a piece of art with lovely toppings that they've carefully picked out of their heart shaped bowls.  Well I'm afraid you won't see any of that here.   I tried to arrange my pancake to make it look wonderful for my blog but the reality is I'm not very artistic, I'm just me .. and I was very happy that we'd managed to make one that looked like a pancake so I quickly threw a heap of banana, cream, caramel sauce and ice-cream on it before wolfing it down.

So here goes ... I proudly present, my pancake!





Hey there's always next year!
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22 comments

  1. Considering you said it all went wrong the end result looks yummy. I today have eaten my own body weight in pancakes. Thank goodness that I don't need to see another till next year Lucy

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    1. It was yummy which is definitely the most important thing :D I'm actually STILL full up this morning ... I think it was the ice-cream AND cream combination that did it!

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  2. I have to admit to not being the best at making pancakes - at least not the British crepe style but I'll always give it a go, I somewhat suck on getting the batter right so I can see why packet batter is tempting! I love your choice of topping!

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    1. Even with pre-made batter we got confused ... it just seemed to get really thin in the middle which meant that holes were appearing, then it got stuck to the pan so when we tried to flip it the mess started :( There must be a knack to it!

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  3. Ahhh sounds like you had fun and it definitely doesn't have to be perfect, as long as it tastes good ;). Classic sugar and lemon is my fav.
    Lots of love,
    Angie
    SilverSpoon London

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    1. My first one was lemon and sugar and it was so good, you can't beat a classic like that x

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  4. That looks really good! I don't actually like pancakes though, so I didn't have any :-S Are pan cakes classed as a type of cake, do we think...?! :) x

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    1. HA! No! They're definitely not as good as cake!

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  5. There's definitely a knack to it - you'll have to keep practising- oh well!! I went for the exact same topping on mine! :) I couldn't fit a second in though and I'm still craving a lemon and sugar one! xx

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    1. I was annoyed cos I saw a photo on twitter of someone's banoffee pancake on twitter and they had a flake crumbled on the top, so I was really jealous and was really wishing I had a flake .... then yesterday I went into the fridge and guess what was sitting on the top shelf? A damn flake! GRRRRRRRR! It had been there the whole time, it must have been one from a Christmas selection box!

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  6. I'm rubbish at making pancakes, I was going to buy a ready mix too until my boyfriend was adamant we cook from scratch...meant he had to do all the work so I wasn't complaining haha!

    Lovely blog, followed you on bloglovin! :)

    missisgoode.blogspot.co.uk

    x

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    1. Awwwww thank you :)

      In all honesty I don't think the ready mix made it any easier, it was once it got into the pan we seemed to have the problem x

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  7. Yum, those look so delicious, I am totally craving pancakes now. I have not heard of Pancake Day before, next year I will be sure to observe it! :-)

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    1. It's a very funny tradition .. the idea is we're supposed to give up some foods for lent so you empty your cupboards out by making pancakes to use up ingredients! Weird eh?

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  8. This has made me want pancakes again, this year I attempted chocolate ones which were okay but definitely need to perfect the recipe!

    Hannah
    x
    daintyandivory.blogspot.com

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    1. We were in Asda a little while ago and the cheating ready mix we used is now reduced to 50p, we were tempted to get some more and have another go but we talked ourselves out of it :D

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  9. My pancakes were a disaster, yours look amazing, I'm jealous!

    Gems x
    Fashion, Well Done

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    1. Blimey! Yours must really have been bad if you think mine looks good! :p

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  10. haha - your kitchen sounds like my kitchen :)
    As long as the food taste good, that's all that matter!

    I was unsure of making own own pancake miss but we have been making the same recipe from Delia for a few years now and it's pretty awesome. Never a bad pancake, unless we walk away and it burns ;)

    ~ K
    bluehairinbelgium.blogspot.be

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    1. My Mum swears by Delia! Maybe I should get myself one of her cookbooks!

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  11. I bet it tasted bloody lovely.

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    1. Yeah it did :D Was definitely better than it looked! I was full up for the rest of the evening!

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