The best pancake recipe for Shrove Tuesday

Whether you’re going down the traditional route of using up all the eggs, cream and butter in your fridge for Lent or you’re just jumping on board the excuse to eat pancakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Tuesday) is right up there with Easter and Christmas in the delicious holiday stakes.

We might not be up for denying ourselves anything when it comes to food, but we will adopt any holiday that involves eating our weight in maple syrup, so we asked Nims from The Jam Pantry to tell us the secret to her devilishly good pancakes. And with a recipe this easy, Shrove Tuesday may just last until Friday.

The perfect pancake recipe

Mix together the following dry ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 cup castor sugar
• 3 tsp baking powder

In a separate bowl mix together the following wet ingredients:

• 3 eggs
• 1/4 cup melted butter
• 1 1/2 cups milk
• 1/4 cup yoghurt

Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the wet. Beat from the centre out and continue until there are no lumps. You may need a further 1/2 cup of milk if the day is humid. The yoghurt reacts with the baking powder and makes them even fluffier than normal. Fry them up to your own perfect size and level of fluffiness in a dab of butter and a dash of olive oil in a heavy based saucepan on medium heat. Feeds two hungry animals or four polite breakfasters and will double and triple exactly.

Serving suggestions:

• Maple syrup (duh). ALWAYS in a cute jug on the side so the bottom of your pancake doesn’t turn to mush.
• Ricotta, passionfruit curd and mango cheeks.
• Bacon, maple syrup and fried eggs.
• Poached pears, blackberries and yoghurt.
• Fresh strawberries, peaches and whipped cream with a little vanilla

For a savoury version:

• Omit the sugar, add a pinch of salt, a tsp of chilli, 2 cups of corn kernels, a handful of coriander chopped and hey presto, corn fritters!
• Do the same with mint and peas and shazam, pea fritters.

Add bacon at your leisure. nims xx