Shrove Tuesday/ Pancake Day 2017

Pancake Day, or Shrove Tuesday, is the traditional feast day before the start of Lent on Ash Wednesday.

Lent - the 40 days leading up to Easter - was traditionally a time of fasting. Shrove Tuesday was the last opportunity to use up eggs and fats before embarking on the Lenten fast and pancakes are the perfect way of using up these ingredients.

A pancake is a thin, flat cake, made of batter and fried in a frying pan. A traditional English pancake is very thin and is served immediately. Golden syrup or lemon juice and caster sugar are the usual toppings for pancakes.

The pancake has a very long history and is featured in cookery books as far back as 1439. The tradition of tossing or flipping them is almost as old: "And every man and maide doe take their turne, And tosse their Pancakes up for feare they burne." (Pasquil's Palin, 1619).

We will be enjoying some lovely pancakes in our homes this year and we welcome you to join us. Please get in touch with our home teams for more information about our celebrations for the day. You can find out more about the history of Pancake Day here.