Know more about | Pancakes

A few pancake facts to impress your fellow Shrove Tuesday diners

• The most expensive pancake ever sold was created by a Manchester hotel in 2014 and included lobster, champagne and caviar and was yours for just £800.

• The world’s largest pancake also originated from Manchester. Made in 1994 it weighed a whopping three tonnes and had to be flipped and edible to qualify. At 15 metres in diameter there was definitely enough to go around.

• The French have some unique traditions when it comes to crepes. Some families throw the first crepe of the year at a wardrobe and if it sticks you have to leave it there for 12 months. A quicker update than a lick of paint, we suppose.

• The first pancake race happened in Olney, Buckinghamshire in 1445 and was for ladies only. The annual race is still going strong and will take place on 25 February this year.

• When it comes to pancake records Dominic ‘Mike’ Cuzzacrea holds two separate crowns. In 1999 he completed a marathon at Niagara Falls in 3 hours, 2 minutes, and 27 seconds while battling winds and flipping the pancake once every 1.8 seconds for the duration of the entire race. He also holds the record for highest pancake toss of 9.47 metres in 2010, beating previous record holder, celebrity chef Aldo Zilli.

• And finally, if you want to know how to flip a pancake without getting it stuck to the ceiling, the good people of Newcastle University’s STEM blog have worked it out for you: To flip a pancake a metre in the air we need a launch velocity of 4.4 metres per second. If our launch velocity is over 6 metres per second however, our pancake will get stuck to the ceiling! We also have to be fast to catch the pancake as it falls back down or we could be left with pancake on the floor! For a flip of a metre we only have 0.9 of a second to catch our pancake. We can calculate the air time (t) of our pancake using the following equation: t = 2v/g

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More from our February issue…

Recipe: carrot houmous

Photography: Ryland Peters & Small

Shop-bought houmous comes in many flavours. This roasted carrot version is brilliant with savoury pancakes.

Serves 8

500g carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

200g chickpeas

1 small garlic clove, crushed

Squeezed juice of 1/2 lemon

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1⁄4 tsp ground cumin

1 Preheat oven to 180C/Fan 160C/Gas 4 and line a roasting pan with baking parchment.

2 Place the carrots, olive oil, salt, pepper and 1 tbsp of water into the prepared pan, cover with foil and roast for 40 mins until tender. Set aside to cool.

3 Drain the chickpeas, reserving 3 tbsp of their liquid. In a food processor blitz the carrots, chickpeas and reserved liquid, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, cumin and some salt and pepper until smooth.

4 Serve, spread on the turmeric pancakes you can find in the February issue of The Simple Things, topped with seasonal raw veg, herbs and salad.

Recipe from Modern Pancakes (Ryland Peters & Small).

More fresh recipes for March…

More from our March issue…

Recipe | Fluffy Banana Sultana Pancakes

The best thing about February? Pancakes, of course. Bananas and sultanas are meant for each other, especially when snuggled up together in a tender pancake like this.

Makes 8
100g self-raising flour
1⁄2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 large ripe banana, mashed, plus sliced banana to serve
100ml whole milk
1 large egg
1 tbsp melted butter
40g sultanas
Melted butter or vegetable oil, for frying
Runny honey or maple syrup, to serve

1 In a mixing bowl, add the flour, baking powder, a pinch of salt, the cinnamon, the mashed banana, milk, egg, and melted butter and gently whisk the wet ingredients into the dry until well combined. Be careful not to overbeat the mixture or the pancakes will be tough; some small lumps are fine. Stir in the sultanas.

2 Heat a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and brush with butter or oil. Drop 60ml batter into the pan and cook for about 1 min, or until golden underneath. Adjust the heat as needed to ensure the pancakes don’t burn before they’re cooked through. Flip and cook for a further 30 seconds to 1 min. Repeat with rest of the batter.

3 Serve straight from the pan or keep warm in an oven preheated to 150C/Fan 130F/ 300F while you cook the remaining batter.

4 Serve the pancakes with slices of banana and a drizzle of honey or maple syrup.

Recipe from Posh Pancakes by Sue Quinn (Quadrille)
 

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Recipe: Fluffy blueberry pancakes for Father's Day

Home cook, photographer and mother Kat Molesworth from Housewife Confidential has stopped by to share a special recipe suitable for small hands to make and perfect for sharing with the whole family this Father's Day.

Days of whispered planning, secret making and dreaming of the special breakfast – “We will make pancakes, won’t we Mama?” They rush down the stairs in their pyjamas, pulling open the fridge and jumping up and down like monkeys. Everyone takes a turn at adding ingredients, mixing and checking the blueberries taste good (they do). Then the air fills with a comforting buttery sizzle as the first pancakes plop into the pan. We stack them on a plate, their jammy berries oozing and delicious and glug the maple syrup on top. Cards and presents, coffee and the pancakes all troop up the stairs to where Papa waits.

This is the morning when a little more time is taken, to say thank you, to cuddle and to nourish. Let’s take a walk, go slowly, hold hands and remember why this love, pure and simple, is the best.

Happy Father’s Day!

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Fluffy Blueberry Pancakes

135g plain flour

½ tbsp. caster sugar

2 tsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

30g butter, melted and cooled slightly

250ml milk

1 egg

Method:

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- Melt the butter in a pan on a low heat and set aside to cool. - Sieve the dry ingredients into a bowl and stir to combine. - Lightly whisk the milk and egg together then pour the melted butter in and whisk again. - Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and whisk to combine only. You will have a lumpy batter, over whisking will activate the gluten and make your pancakes tough. - Rub a large frying pan with butter or oil and use a small ladle to drop the batter onto the pan over a medium heat. You should be able to fit several in at a time depending on the size of your pan. - As they begin to cook drop blueberries into the surface of each pancake. - Cook for 1 – 2 minutes on each side until they are just done – you should see little holes form on the surface and they should be lightly browned. - Serve hot with a generous glug of maple syrup!

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If you would like to learn to take beautiful photographs like Kat, visit her online film and photography school Capturing Childhood their Manual Overdrive  course begins today and there are gift certificates available for all of the online courses. All photography © Kat Molesworth