Let's Explore Pancake Day

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Let's Explore Pancake Day

Feb 23, 2022

It's P-P-P-P-P-P-Pancake Day 😊

Easter is pretty late this year and so, accordingly, is Pancake Day. We love Pancake Day in our house and often have pancakes for breakfast, dinner and tea. We like to start with cowboy pancakes for breakfast, then have scotch pancakes for lunch and finish with bog-standard, run-of-the-mill pancakes-that-need-tossing for tea (recipe down the page). I try to get some savoury fillings in there - cheese and baked beans is always popular with kids, although I prefer steamed leeks covered in a rich cheese sauce myself - but there are always plenty of sweet toppings, for sure.

There's an easy and reliable Scotch Pancake recipe in Picture Book Explorers - Greyfriars Bobby that I always use. I'm lucky enough to own a real, cast iron frying pan that works amazingly well for these smaller, thicker pancakes. The pan has to be very hot before adding the bare minimum of oil. Because it’s a cast iron pan, I use metal tools so the pancakes are easy to turn and don't stick.

I use a recipe for American pancakes made with cornmeal that I came across when we were doing a project on cowboys - hence, they've been dubbed 'Cowboy Pancakes' by my kids. In the UK, you can find cornmeal going by its European name - polenta. The best recipe I found advised soaking the polenta in boiling water for about 10 minutes before adding the other ingredients. We have tried other recipes, but the pancakes were a bit gritty in texture, they were definitely much fluffier after giving the polenta good soak.

Pancake Day is also known as Shrove Tuesday. This name indicates the religious significance of this festival. Lent starts on Ash Wednesday, the day after Shrove Tuesday, and people used to go to their local church to 'shrive' themselves – that is, they went to confession. It was customary for Christians to forego fat and eggs during Lent, which runs from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday. These days many people observe Lent by giving up chocolate or sweet things as an act of fasting. The fasting is a reminder to Christian’s of Christ's time in the desert where he spent 40 days and nights without food.

There are lots of Pancake Day traditions that take place in Britain. Some of the longest running ones are pancake racing in Olney, Buckinghamshire and a mass football match in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, both have origins in Tudor England. A comparatively new tradition takes place in Scarborough where they skip on the promenade and have been doing so since 1903.

Did you know that there are world records for pancakes?
~ Dean Gould holds the record for the most pancake tosses anyone has ever done in two minutes. He achieved 349 tosses at Felixstowe, Suffolk in 1995.
~ The highest ever pancake toss was performed by Dominic Cuzzacrea in November 2010. The pancake reached a height of 9.47 metres at the Walden Galleria Mall in Cheektowaga, New York, USA.
~ The largest pancake ever made was 15.01 metres in diameter and was 2.5 cm thick and weighed 3 tonnes. It was made in Rochdale, near Manchester, UK in 1994, by the Co-Operative Union, Ltd.
~ The tallest stack of pancakes was made up of 60 large round pancakes and measured 76cm tall. It broke the Guinness World Records in 2012.

One of my favourite pancake picture books as a child was The Big Pancake. The story is very similar to the Gingerbread Man in that the pancake in question develops a mind of its own and runs away, or rather rolls away, as fast as it can down the street. It is chased by various people and animals before meeting a pig who claims not to be able to hear its explanation of why it is rolling so fast. The clever pig asks the pancake to the speak directly into his ear, at which point the pig gobbles him up. There are many different versions of it around the world and you can read some of them here.

Traditional Pancake Recipe
Ingredients:
4oz/200g plain flour
1 egg
1/2 pint/300ml milk & water mixed together, consisting 2/3 milk to 1/3 water
A little oil for frying
Method:
1. Sieve flour into a large mixing bowl.
2. Make a well in the centre of the flour and crack the eggs into the well.
3. Mix with a balloon whisk.
4. Add the liquid a little at a time until the mixture is a medium pouring consistency.
5. Leave to stand for 30 mins.
6. Then, heat the frying pan and add a desert spoon of oil over a medium heat.
7. When the oil is hot, pour a thin layer of batter into the pan, rotating the pan to ensure it spreads evenly.
8. When the top is set, turn the pancake over.
9. Serve immediately.
10. Add your favourite toppings and enjoy!

Ideas for Pancake Day fun
1. Hold your own pancake race, use a cooked pancake and cold pans.
2. Try setting new World records an have a pancake tossing competition, use a cooked pancake and a cold pan
~ How many tosses can you do in 2 minutes?
~ How high can you toss that pancake?
~ How many pancakes can you stack?
3. Invent your own pancake fillings.
4. Get out your skipping rope and invent your own pancake day skipping rhyme.
5. Read a pancake book (suggestions below).
6. Act out the story of The Big Pancake, use toy animals and a cardboard pancake.
7. Learn this poem by Christina Rosetti and recite it with actions -
"Mix the pancake,
Stir the pancake,
Pop it in the pan;
Fry the pancake,
Toss the pancake,
Catch it - if you can."
8. Find out about local Pancake Day traditions and have a go yourselves.
9. Adjust the above recipe for double (or more) quantities for maths practise.
10. Cut out pancakes from thick card, to use for games
~ How many can you stack?
~ Stick pictures or write names of different pancake ingredients on on side. Put one ingredient on two cards & use them to play pairs or snap.
~ Put a frying pan on the floor and 'toss' your pancakes into the pan.
~ Cut out pictures or draw your favourite toppings on the pancakes.
~ Roll the pancakes on their edges, measure the distance they travel

Books
Mr Wolf's Pancakes (Mr Wolf Series)
The Runaway Pancake: Level 4 (First Reading) (Usborne First Reading)
Ladybird Tales: The Big Pancake
Pancake Pandemonium
Mama Panya's Pancakes: A Village Tale from Kenya
Pancakes for Breakfast
Pancakes for Findus (Findus and Pettson) (Findus & Pettson)
Little Grey Rabbit's Pancake Day (The Little Grey Rabbit library)
Curious George Makes Pancakes [With CD] (Curious George - Level 1)

Printables
Jesus in the Desert cloze activity