Pancake Day UK Style | British Traditions | British Food Culture

Yes we are back in my kitchen and that's good because today we're learning all

about pancake day, but what exactly is pancake day? Hmm pancake day is basically

a day when we eat pancakes it always falls on a Tuesday and was originally

called Shrove Tuesday, some people still do call it Shrove Tuesday. It comes

before Ash Wednesday. Now the date each year changes but it will always come

forty-seven days before Easter. It all stems from Christian traditions.

Originally known as Shrove Tuesday that name comes from the word Shrive which

means to take absolution for your sins by doing penance. What does that mean?

Well basically around this time of year you would be called to give confession.

Please forgive me I've done terrible things. Then once you've confessed you're

given absolution which means that you are basically forgiven, you're let off

but you do have to do penance and penance is where you punish yourself. You

give yourself punishment and the punishment is what is known as Lent. This

is 40 days of fasting so before the penance begins before Lent takes place

the best thing to do is to get rid of all the naughty fatty foods from the

cupboard, clear out the cupboards and the fridge so you can do your penance

without being tempted and that's where Shrove Tuesday, pancake day comes into

play. So your pancakes are basically a way to get rid of things like butter,

eggs, milk, sugar, all the nice rich sweet and fatty foods and here's something I

only learned today; In America pancake day is called Mardi Gras which is French

for Fat Tuesday. So enough about the history what do

we need to make a pancake? We need 200 grams of plain flour. 350 to 400

milliliters of milk or you can do half milk and half water for a lighter

pancake.You need two large eggs which will be lightly whisked 1 tablespoon of

vegetable oil and then you can add a pinch of salt and you'll also need

vegetable oil for frying. Ok I'm ready to start cooking my ingredients are ready

and the first thing I need is my flour. Now we're supposed to put the flour in a

bowl and make a well in the middle of the bowl so basically you just make a

hole in the middle of the flour like that then we pour in the milk. Oh dear ok

anyway and then the eggs then I take my whisk and I'm going to try to mix the

egg and milk together first by doing little stirs and then I'll make it

bigger to try and incorporate the flour. This is gonna get messy I can feel it.

I think I need to bake a bigger bowl. Bigger bowl, right let's do this properly.

And we keep mixing until we have a smooth batter now we add our tablespoon

of oil then you take a crepe pan or an omelette pan is what I'm going to use just

a small frying type pan with a nonstick bottom. You're going to take a tissue dip

it into the oil, kitchen roll ideally, and then wipe the oil onto the base of the

pan then we're going to heat the pan over a medium heat for one minute. It's

all going wrong I've managed to drop the whisk and cover myself in butter this is

why you should have an apron, definitely add that to my shopping list.

We're ready okay okay okay so then we get a ladle make sure you've got a

nice spread I haven't made these for such a long time please keep your

fingers crossed that I don't make a complete mess of this while I'm showing

it to everyone ah okay so you're only supposed to cook for around 30 to 40

seconds but it looks like my pan wasn't hot enough we'll see. Now to check

the underneath side of the pancake you need like a palette knife I think it's

called which is long and flat I don't seem to have one. I'm ill-equipped but I

do have a spatula and and the rubber type spatula scraper thing so I'm gonna

try and use one of these.

So I'm using a wooden a wooden like thing I'm just to loosen it off the bottom

Once it's loose, hopefully I'm not gonna tear the whole thing, once it's loose I

can flip it. Okay so now it's loose now comes the really exciting part which is

the pancake flip so to get it on to its other side you have to flip it now I've

not flipped a pancake for a long time so let's hope this goes well. You get it

nice and loose to the edge of the pan hey I'm so glad that stayed together I've done this

once before in the pancake burst apart and pancake went everywhere. Okay so now

you cook the other side and for about 30 to 40 seconds I honestly think my

pan is a little bit... it's not hot enough is what I want to say, so I'm just gonna

turn the heat up and keep cooking. Now there are many ways to enjoy a pancake

but what you have to ask yourself the most important question is are you sweet

or are you savory? If you like to have a sweet pancake then one of the most

common things to do is to add sugar and lemon. I've literally just bought some

from Sainsbury's they're not sponsoring me by the way probably they should so

caster sugar and I've looked bought lemon juice but you can just buy fresh

lemons and squeeze on fresh lemons if you like I got this cuz it lasts a bit

longer. Some people will opt for chocolate

spread and chopped banana that is delicious I have the trusty old

jar of Nutella and I luckily just bought some bananas Nutella aren't sponsoring

me either unfortunately can you imagine the vats

of Nutella they would send me for free. Ah yay it's getting a bit of colour now

so I would brown it off on both sides and serve it up if you opt the savoury

then you can add cheese ham tomato anything you like really the whole point

of pancakes is to just use up what you've got in the house in the fridge

and in the cupboards. Right I'm ready for that pancake now if you want to make

pancakes for yourself at home then you might be interested in the notes that I

wrote for this lesson it will give you the background that I talked about as

well as the ingredients and the method of how to make a good pancake and these

are available for free to download from my website the link will be down in the

description box below okay enjoy your pancakes oh and before you go don't

forget to share not your pancakes of course you can eat them all to yourself

but share this video if you think it's interesting enough and do give it a

thumb up as well as hitting that subscribe button

all right I'm hungry I'll see you later!