Avoid shop-bought plastic-shaker pancake mixes and save money and the melting ice flows by making your own stack for Shrove Tuesday with three easy to remember steps
Even if you’re not giving anything up for Lent, everyone can enjoy the traditional feast day of Shrove Tuesday – or Pancake Day. I’m going to try and give up being quietly furious with everything, but I doubt I’ll last a day.
This year has completely confused me – already it’s the end of February and no pancakes – as Shrove Tuesday falls on March 4 this year. Not that I need wait all year to make pancakes – I often knock up a jug of batter on Sunday mornings. It’s an easy way to get all the eggy vitamin goodness into an egg-refusing teenager who still hasn’t realised the three main ingredients of pancakes includes eggs.
But then perhaps she’d be happier with one of those supermarket plastic shaker pancake makers because I don’t think they’re made with eggs – more like concrete mix. My Northern Irish grandfather Jonjo McNally was a proud community baker and he’d be spinning in his grave if he saw those bottles of pre-mix being sold on supermarket shelves today.
Who is so short of time they can’t add flour to a bowl? We all need to make more food from scratch rather than eat ultra processed foods (UPFs) that are not only stretching our elasticated waistlines – but also hard-pressed NHS resources.
And here’s food for thought, supermarkets make more profits than fuel giants, so stop buying their ready meals and paying for a superstore CEO’s private jet, and start making your own delicious food. You don’t need anything fancy – just basic skills for good old fashioned plain home cooking.
The pre-made pancake mixes being sold in the shops all come in unnecessary plastic bottles – apparently it makes it easier to add water and shake. OK, your personal mountain of single use plastics isn’t going to cause the glaciers to melt, but we all need to do what we can because one day the floods will come.
By making your own pancakes, you can whip up a batter in three easy steps with a clear conscience and the only thing that needs to melt is the maple syrup all over your pancakes. All you have to remember is the rule of 1, 2, 3 to get the perfect crepe-like pancakes. If you prefer American-style smaller stodgy ones, then just reduce the milk to make a gloopier batter.
Place your bowl or jug on weighing scales, zero the scales and add the following ingredients:
1 is for 100g of plain flour into the bowl.
2 is for two eggs broken into the flour.
3 is for adding 300ml of milk to the mix.
You can whisk the mixture by hand, or use a cake mixer, but I use a stick blender and whizz it until lump-free. The old rules said you had to stand the batter in the fridge for 20 minutes, but I’ve tried and it doesn’t make a jot of difference to the end result.
I use a little iron skillet to make my crepe-like pancakes, but any frying pan is fine. The trick is to use a low to medium heat under the pan so the pancakes cook quickly enough but don’t burn.
I prefer to use lard to cook my pancakes – it doesn’t burn as quickly as butter and it’s actually lower in saturates – but most of all, I prefer natural fats to vegetable oils. Years ago everyone used lard, but the big food conglomerates managed to convince everyone they needed nasty cheap vegetable oils in yet more single use plastics. And no, in case you’re asking, lard doesn’t make everything taste of pork fat.
Again, it’s more sustainable than plastic bottles of veg oil, I just peel back the paper on the lard and rub the end of the pat on the hot pan, like a scrubbing brush. Then either pour the mixture from the jug straight into the pan, or take a small ladleful from a bowl, and roll the batter around to cover the bottom in a nice thin layer. Then don’t touch it until you see tiny bubbles form in the batter, and the sides go lacy and look ready to flip. If you can’t easily slide a spatula under them, they’re not ready.
You can flip the pancakes in the pan by tossing them if you’re brave, but I’ve lost too many crepes this way to my greedy pug Bozza waiting patiently at my feet.
I keep a stack of them warm in the oven on a wire rack on a baking tray while I finish all the batter off, then get stuck into the pile with just lemon and sugar. That’s juice from a quartered real lemon – not one of those plastic Jif monstrosities. I hold those personally responsible for the downfall of civilisation.
Anyway, enjoy your Shrove Tuesday treat – and don’t forget, real pancakes are as easy as 1, 2, 3.
• The Mirror’s Siobhan McNally writes about easy chef skills everyone can learn to make cooking from scratch simple.
