Tuesday night is not traditionally a great night for a party. Your invitees have recovered from the weekend, and who wants to go out on a school night?
It is not my fault, though, that Shrove Tuesday falls midweek. Known in the UK as Pancake Day, and around the world variously as Mardi Gras or Carnival, Shrove Tuesday marks the day before the start of Lent. In the Christian tradition, it is an occasion for using up luxuries in preparation for the self-denial of Lent.
Anyway, pancakes are tasty, so here is a plan for how to organise a midweek pancake party with minimal hassle.
Order your ingredients from your favourite online supplier, to prevent grappling over the last remaining box of eggs in the local supermarket on the way home on Tuesday evening.
Product placement? On this blog?
I rely on Delia Smith for my pancake recipe.
Delia
Fortunately, I held a pancake party last year and already know how to cook pancakes, as one of my invitees suggested this instructional video:
Pancakes, Swedish style
An hour before your guests arrive, start making the batter. Or, persuade a friend to make the batter, whilst you panic clean the flat hide the detritus of daily living behind closed doors and push the vacuum round.
Getting started making the pancakes
Instruct your guests to bring toppings. Offer then some guidelines, so you do not end up, as we did, with four jars of jam and half a dozen jars of Nutella.
Toppings
Making pancakes is fun! So get your guests to make their own. I encouraged my guests to toss their pancakes
Tossing a pancake
but they seemed more interested in flambeing them.
I glanced nervously at the fire alarm...
No-one drinks much alcohol at a pancake party. Partly because they have to get up for work the next day, and partly, I am told, because after three banana-and-Nutella crepes, any food or beverage looses its appeal. This means that your guests are sober enough to help you with the washing up, pack up the leftover Nutella in their bags, and roll home, replete.
See you next year.
We love pancakes, we do.
“No-one drinks much alcohol at a pancake party.”
Not true! Mind you that was in Glasgow, which is an exception to many rules, especially when alcohol is involved. Our French roommate even put beer in the batter once, which was a vast improvement on my Irish friend’s recipe (she got the eggs:flour ratio backwards).
I haven’t had pancakes on pancake day since I left Glasgow, now I come to think of it. In Canada, pancakes are big thick things you eat (with bacon and syrup) for breakfast, whereas the thinner crepe style isn’t as common, and no-one even seems to know about pancake day.
Maybe I’ll throw a party next year!
There was quite a bit of rum in the flambéd pancakes. But I think the alcohol all burns off.
As for confusing the egg and flour ratios, she should rely on Delia – or that video.
(Is it possible to embed the video? I pasted the embed code from youtube but it disappeared every time I saved the draft.)
I was lazy and bough the mix that you just add water to. It’s only just enough for 1 Eva, so not good for parties, though.
But I love an excuse for pancakes. In Holland, pancakes for dinner is a thing you can do whenever you want, not just one day a year. We had it about once a month when I was a kid, and so far I’ve already had them twice in 2011, so I’m approximately at the 1x a month level!
Every year we say “ooh, pancakes are so easy, we should do this more often”. But we don’t often get around to it. Pancakes are definitely a more everyday dish in Holland – I imagine My Old Dutch has a peak trading day on Shrove Tuesday.
My flat still smells of pancakes though, so I’m not too keen for a reprise.
Mrs Crox made pancakes with eggs laid by our own hens. We had them (the pancakes, not the hens) with sugar and lemon, but the minor Croxii can haz Nutella. Nom nom nom
Every year I always give up the same thing for Lent – abstinence.
I think we had eggs from your hens at CISB – very tasty. Nothing wrong with giving up giving up. I think it is a better idea to take something up for Lent. As long as you don’t take up giving up.
ahh… panncakes, real panncakes 🙂 I ended up with thick American panncakes, suryp and sausage patties for dinner! That worked too.
(I missed the ‘semla’ though, that we Swedes have on pancake day. As Eva mentioned, pancakes were something you ate for dinner many more days a year when I grew up. Even one version when you make the batter, fry some bacon bits, mix them in the batter and pout them in a pan that goes into the oven for 30-45 mins…. yummy with jam to it!)
That sounds tasty – a bit reminiscent of toad-in-the-hole.
Not sure about the jam though, think I will stick with onion gravy.
hm, sort of similar. the jam I’m talking about though wuld be lingonberry jam which is much more tart than “jam jam” 😉 You know, similar to cranberries or so… althuogh, neither would be great with onion gravy me thinks.
Pancakes, as Cath alludes to, are properly served with maple syrup. Proper Canadian maple syrup (although at a stretch the foreign kind from Montana or similar south-of-the-border-but-still-freezing-cold states will do). At least in this country.
Although I have to admit a familiarity with, and fondness for, the thin crepe-like variant with lemon and sugar.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmm pancakes.