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Pancake Day/Mardi Gras

Matt N

Matt N

CF Legend
Hi guys. As some of you may know, today is Shrove Tuesday, better known as Pancake Day here in the UK (or Mardi Gras in the US). It’s a holiday (of sorts) that I personally really like, mostly because it’s the only day of the year where I get to eat pancakes! So basically; do you celebrate Pancake Day? And if you do, what’s your favourite thing to put on pancakes? Have you ever done any unique toppings? Or just anything Pancake Day related that you feel like sharing!

Personally, I love Pancake Day, and I do usually like to have pancakes on the day. I don’t tend to go too adventurous topping-wise; I usually top my pancakes with golden syrup.

I hope Pancake Day 2022 goes a little better than Pancake Day 2021 did, though… in 2021, we had to make pancakes as part of our PSHEE lesson in Sixth Form (we were in distance learning at this point, so I was doing this at home), and the thing they encouraged us to do was try a unique topping idea. We had a few Cadbury Creme Eggs knocking about at home, so I thought; why not melt a Creme Egg and pour that on top of my pancakes? It was certainly a novel idea, and I had this wonderful vision in my head of it being like on cooking programmes, where they pour this wonderful-looking melted chocolate over pancakes and it looks delicious. I like pancakes, and I like Creme Eggs; what could have gone wrong?

So I made my pancakes, and then microwaved a Creme Egg for 30 seconds. What I had failed to take into account is that Creme Eggs have fondant in the centre, so don’t properly melt when microwaved… instead of melting, my Creme Egg had congealed in the microwave, and was still solid, but all horrible and sticky, and tasted far worse than a regular solid Creme Egg. So as such, I was left with plain pancakes and a horrible congealed Creme Egg that I would have enjoyed far more in its regular solid form… in conclusion, it was a waste of perfectly good pancakes and a waste of a perfectly good Creme Egg. I think I’m sticking to good old golden syrup this year!

But what are your general thoughts and ideas on Pancake Day/Mardi Gras?
 
Love the tradition, always made them on the day as far back as I can remember (although some years a little belated if I'm working away from home, like now). I'm a lemon juice and sugar man, sometimes to the point where they make up 50% of the serving.
I do often think 'why don't we have these more often?', though there is something rather nice about making it a special occasion dish.

Visits to various establishments around the world have occasionally broken that tradition and been an eye opener (bananas, toffee and cream to feed a family of 12, then a full 'english' on the side, in the case of a certain Denny's breakfast) though I have to say, I've never found a pancake (or crêpe) anywhere that's as good as a home-made.

Melting creme eggs does sound rather genius to be fair, shame it didn't work out. I'd never do it in a microwave though, might be worth trying it in a bowl over hot water like you were baking with it, it would separate the two parts at the very least. Question I now need to know the answer to - would the filling be spreadable?
 
HeartlineCoaster said:
Love the tradition, always made them on the day as far back as I can remember (although some years a little belated if I'm working away from home, like now). I'm a lemon juice and sugar man, sometimes to the point where they make up 50% of the serving.
I do often think 'why don't we have these more often?', though there is something rather nice about making it a special occasion dish.

Visits to various establishments around the world have occasionally broken that tradition and been an eye opener (bananas, toffee and cream to feed a family of 12, then a full 'english' on the side, in the case of a certain Denny's breakfast) though I have to say, I've never found a pancake (or crêpe) anywhere that's as good as a home-made.

Melting creme eggs does sound rather genius to be fair, shame it didn't work out. I'd never do it in a microwave though, might be worth trying it in a bowl over hot water like you were baking with it, it would separate the two parts at the very least. Question I now need to know the answer to - would the filling be spreadable?
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I agree that I do like the special-ness of only having them once a year, in that sense.

I agree that there is something quite special about homemade pancakes, too. Come to think of it, though, I did often used to like those smaller American-style pancakes; some of them with a golden syrup sachet or two on top used to be my go-to choice at a Premier Inn buffet breakfast until Premier Inn stopped doing golden syrup sachets. Although we don’t really have buffet breakfast in general anymore, so I guess that takes me back to “once a year”. Center Parcs’ Pancake House also does rather nice Dutch pancakes, although we rarely ever ate there on our CP holidays, as I’m in a comfortable minority in my family in having a particularly sweet tooth; my family are generally more into savoury things.

I think I just like pancakes, to be honest…

I think I tried the microwave method because I’d seen my mum microwave chocolate to melt it before and it had always worked fairly well for her, so my thought process was “why wouldn’t that work for a Creme Egg?”. Your method probably sounds better, in hindsight… mine really didn’t work terribly well.

As for whether the filling would be spreadable; it does have that type of consistency, so I guess it could be? I don’t really know, though…
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but English pancakes are more akin to a French crêpe than an American pancake, right?

Mardi Gras is fine. I don't really do anything for it. In my previous career, I was involved in an organization that maintained the standards for my industry and the organization liked to schedule our annual spring conference in New Orleans the week of Mardi Gras... so that they could have their companies pay for them to go to Mardi Gras. I got Mardi Gras-ed out after a few years. Not really my scene. I do enjoy a good king cake though.
 
Indy said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but English pancakes are more akin to a French crêpe than an American pancake, right?

Mardi Gras is fine. I don't really do anything for it. In my previous career, I was involved in an organization that maintained the standards for my industry and the organization liked to schedule our annual spring conference in New Orleans the week of Mardi Gras... so that they could have their companies pay for them to go to Mardi Gras. I got Mardi Gras-ed out after a few years. Not really my scene. I do enjoy a good king cake though.
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Pretty much, at least traditionally. Topped with lemon and sugar was the big thing when I was growing up but toppings are a bit more elaborate now.

Mardi Gras for work sounds like it could be risky, especially if its on the company credit card 😂

I love pancakes, just never make them. I'm definitely firmly on the side of 'not just for Shrove Tuesday', pancakes should be a year round thing and both sweet and savoury.

@Matt N On the Creme egg situ - I've baked with them and the filling just goes a bit melty and gloopy. You might get better results using a Bain-marie or by adding cream as if you were making a chocolate grenache. Or maybe just wrap a creme egg in a pancake like a burrito 🤤
 
Bain marie doesn't really work either...best thinly sliced as best you can and wrapped.
Years of professional experience.
Once watched the Shrovetide Sedgefield "Ball game", back in my college days.
One side of town versus the other, with a ball somewhere in the middle.
Excuse to settle scores and smash a few windows...and eat pancakes!
Amazing scenes though, not many dead!
Happy Mardi Gras everyone.
I will not be getting my moobs out for beads.
 
Like me some pancakes.

I'm not very good at prepping the batter and cooking them though...surprising really, as I'm pretty good with cooking most things, but I can never get pancakes right. In saying that, I'm good at flipping / tossing them.

My preferred topping is lemon and cinnamon sugar. Pretty light on the sugar, heavy on the lemon and cinnamon though.
 
Yeah, needs to be a proper 'english' pancake - pan-fried with sugar and lemon.

I did consider having a go, as they're one of my favourite sweet foods, but ultimately decided I was too lazy.

One of few good things to happen in 2020 was that I won a pancake eating contest :)
 
Libby_Liz said:
@Matt N On the Creme egg situ - I've baked with them and the filling just goes a bit melty and gloopy. You might get better results using a Bain-marie or by adding cream as if you were making a chocolate grenache. Or maybe just wrap a creme egg in a pancake like a burrito 🤤
Click to expand...

Grenache is a red wine grape - I think you may be referring to a Ganache!
 
In Sweden we don't have a pancake day although we have a waffle day on the 25th of March.

We call the day before Ash Wednesday "Fettisdagen" which translates to Fat Tuesday. Same as Mardi Gras. It is tradition to eat a kind of pastry called "Semla". It's a bun cut in half with cream and an almond paste in between. Really good stuff.

semlor.jpg
 
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