I wonder how many hundreds of blog posts have been published in the last 24hrs about pancakes?!  A fair few I would imagine.  I know my reader is full of them.  Why?  Because Pancake Day is amazing!

Of course it’s actually called Shrove Tuesday and is the day before Lent, which starts on Ash Wednesday.

The tradition of having pancakes started a bazillion years ago.  It was a way to use up what was left in the cupboards so you could start your month of abstinence.  It’s not like Ramadan where people fast for all the daylight hours, but they are similar in as much as you are meant to go without for 40 days and 40 nights.  Now people will give up one or two luxuries because it’s not taken quite as seriously as it used to be.

How many of you knew that?!  Do I get a teachering gold star today!?

The Christian meaning has become somewhat lost, but the art of pancakes hasn’t.  Everyone is super excited for this lovely little treat.  That said, it’s a very English thing I think.  People keep trying to call them crepes and that makes me pissy. Just because the aren’t fluffy like the American ones, doesn’t mean they are sweet like crepes!!!

As an aside, I would like to be in New Orleans for Mardi Gras one year on run up to Lent as it is another pre-Lent celebration traditionally.  They have some amazing and exotic sounding foods centered around the day that make our pancakes look fairly bland!

Pancake Day always makes me feel homesick though as my Mum always made the best pancakes.  Nothing fancy.  Just cooked in butter and served with a little lemon juice and sugar.  They always were so soft in the middle and had a lovely crunchy “skirt” around the edges.  Poor Mum never got to eat any herself I don’t think as my sister and I were (are still) little gannets who would hoover them up as soon as they were out of the pan!

Sadly I’m not in England and can’t have Mummy’s amazing pancakes so I had to make my own.  Ok, so I didn’t actually have to but I really wanted to and I did myself proud, especially as they were Slimming World approved and everything… well, sort of!!

Breakfast saw the first batch of pancakes.  These were the recipe of the fabulous Siobhan of Slimming Eats.  You can get it here.

I didn’t add quite as much sugar substitute because I just don’t like it very much.  I put in just under half a teaspoon.  Also, I can’t get any syn free vanilla yogurt so used Rachel’s Organic Low Fat Vanilla.  1/3cup is approx 85g of yogurt and therefore 1.5syns.

For the goo in between the pancakes, I mixed Greek yogurt (Rachel’s Fat Free) with half a 11g sachet of Cadbury’s Highlights Caramel.  I had used the other half in my breakfast oats the day before and so thought I would finish it off.  This added 1 syn to the recipe.

I topped with my favourite Walden Farms caramel and chocolate syrups, but also a blob of their marshmallow fluff.  Oh yeah, and I figured I should put a couple of raspberries on too just to show willing!  Syn free toppings as I don’t use much of they syrups or fluff.

It really was good!!  I did use a little too much Greek yogurt for my tastes but it was still very tasty.  Other than that, I would probably use a splash of the chocolate syrup in the pancake mix next time to give it an even more chocolatey flavour, but it was absolutely a recipe that I am keeping and making over again.

The added benefit of this recipe is that I couldn’t finish it all so bought the rest to work for a mid-morning snack, and where the pancakes had cooled they tasted like a layer cake.  Yummo!!

I couldn’t make pancakes at the office, so I had to wait until after work AND after my proper Slimming World friendly speed food supper.  Such a long day!!

Once again I went with a Slimming Eats recipe.  You can find it here.

The reason that I use her as my “go to” is that she doesn’t overly complicate things and they always taste good!  If you don’t use her website as a base to your healthy cooking, you are daft!!!

This time however, it was a fail. A massive fail. I didn’t even bother to take a photo of the mess that was my pancake attempts. I think that the vanilla yogurt I was using was too thick. It just wasn’t cooking but burning at the same time. I tried with higher and lower heats, and still it wouldn’t make pancakes for me.

I was so miffed! I wanted pancakes!! Instead I poured the batter into a muffin tin and thought they might bake into nice little sweet Yorkshire pudding type things.

They did sort of but I had it on the wrong heat so it was all smushy on the inside and then cooked nicely on the outside. This has however given me an idea for a low syn dessert. I’ll let you know how that goes!!!

The Boy and I still wanted pancakes so I called Mum and got her recipe for them, including her secret ingredient that I cannot tell you about!

(I probably could but I don’t want to!! It’s Mum’s special recipe and no one else makes them like her!!)

 

This time it was a success after the first couple of attempts. It’s really hard to get the right amount of batter in the pan, and then cook them the right amount. They taste like crap if they are under-cooked and they don’t do much better when they are burnt!!

On top of the over/under cooking, some came out in strange shapes.

By this point I knew I would be going over on my syn allowance. In for a penny and all that! I prettied them up with actual brown sugar, chocolate shavings, lemon and fruit.

I have to say, they were really rather good! I was very impressed with myself! I’ve never made real pancakes before and much as they weren’t as good as Mum’s, they were a very passable second!!

Because I am in a faffing mood at the moment, I decorated them pretty too using brown sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest, dark chocolate, strawberries and raspberries.

Sadly I now know how to make these and how good they are.  I am going to have to stop myself from making them again for a while.  This could be difficult!!

I hope you had just as tasty day as I did!!