Yemi Adelekan is a food writer and blogger who was a semi-finalist in the 2022 series of BBC TV’s Masterchef competition.

Every Saturday Yemi writes on the Stray Ferret about her love of the area’s food and shares cooking tips – please get in touch with her if you want her to review a restaurant, visit your farm, taste the produce you sell or even share a recipe.

Pancake Day has been and gone but that doesn’t mean we have to wait until next year to make them. Pancake was one of the first non-traditional dishes that I learnt to make because it was easy to make and delicious.

It was the perfect after school snack when my children were growing up and dinner on the nights when they were fussy eaters or had heavy lunches. I could mix the batter and leave them to do the cooking.

They learnt how to flip pancakes and I learnt how to eat the imperfect ones. It was an alternative movie night snack, my bargaining chip to trade for junk food and late study night snack as they grew older.

But according to a poll conducted by YouGov, almost half of UK adults don’t know how to make a pancake, and a quarter don’t even know they contain eggs. It seems we’ve lost touch with some of the most basic skills in the kitchen.

There’s something wonderfully nostalgic about whisking together a pancake batter—watching eggs, flour, and milk transform into something magical. It’s one of the first things many people learned to cook and yet, somewhere along the way, we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s easier to buy a pre-made mix or rely on store-bought pancakes.

Making pancakes from scratch is one of the simplest and most forgiving things you can do in the kitchen. Even if you get it “wrong,” you can still end up with something delicious. If your batter is too thick, thin it out and turn it into a crepe. If it’s too thin, call it a galette. Pancakes are the kind of food that welcome happy accidents.

One of the best things about making pancakes is that it’s an activity, not just a meal. If you have children, it’s the perfect opportunity to get them involved in the kitchen.

Wash and dry your eggs before they come into the kitchen. Let them crack the eggs (shells can always be fished out since the eggshells are clean), whisk the batter (expect some flour clouds), and choose their own toppings.

Cooking together teaches confidence, independence, and a love for food. Many fussy eaters are more open to eating food they helped to prepare and the option to finish the pancake as they want means they are creating it to their taste.

And on Pancake Day, there are no rules—whether they want to sprinkle sugar and lemon or lime, drizzle chocolate or compote, maple syrup or honey, or pile on fresh fruit, it’s all about fun and creativity.

Back to Basics: A Foolproof Pancake Recipe

If you’ve never made a pancake before, this is the only recipe you need.

Classic Pancakes (Makes about 8)

Ingredients:

Method:

1. In a bowl, whisk together the flour, eggs, milk, and salt until smooth. For extra smoothness, let the batter rest for 15 minutes.

2. Heat a non-stick pan over medium heat and brush with a little melted butter.

3. Pour in a small ladleful of batter, swirling the pan so it spreads evenly.

4. Cook for 1-2 minutes until the edges lift slightly, then flip and cook for another minute.

5. Serve with your favourite toppings—whether it’s lemon and sugar, Nutella, or fresh berries.

Once you master the basics, you can start to have fun experimenting with your batter adding flavours from vanilla to Tonka bean, adding fruit powders for colour or even matcha green tea for a bit of health kick. You can also add rice flour, ground oats, chocolate chips, coconut flour to get a different texture. And there is no end to the options of toppings from sweet to nutty.

If you’ve never made a pancake before, let this be the week you give it a go. No fancy ingredients, no complicated techniques—just a simple batter, a hot pan, and a willingness to flip. If you’re making them with kids, enjoy the mess, the laughter, and the joy of creating something together.

After all, cooking is about connection, and few things bring people together like a stack of warm, freshly made pancakes.

Fun Facts about Eggs and Hens

Since eggs are the backbone of pancakes, here are some fascinating egg facts including some from the RSPCA and why choices around the type of eggs we buy really matter:

The oldest known egg recipe dates back to Ancient Rome. The phrase “walking on eggshells” comes from the 19th century, when people tested their balance on fragile eggs. 

The colour of a hen’s earlobes determines the colour of her eggs’ shells. Dark earlobes often mean brown eggs, while lighter-lobed hens can lay white ones. Egg yolks range in colour depending on a hen’s diet—darker yolks often mean a richer flavour. 

A single egg contains around 6g of protein and every vitamin except Vitamin C making them nature’s perfect package and making pancakes a sneaky source of nutrition.

You can tell an egg’s freshness by placing it in water—if it floats, it’s past its best.

Egg whites can expand up to eight times their volume when whipped—hence the magic of meringue.

Hens experience REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, which means they can dream. They also have a sleep phase called unihemispheric slow-wave sleep, in which one half of the brain is asleep and the other awake. This means hens can sleep with one eye open, a helpful skill when looking out for predators.

The phrase “bird brain” doesn’t apply to hens - they’re clever problem solvers with good long-term memories. They can recognise more than 100 faces (both hens and humans!).

Hens lay around 300 eggs a year. A hen starts laying eggs at about 19 weeks old. Before she starts laying, she’s called a pullet. 

Hens have colour vision and can see red, green and blue light. Like many other birds, they can also see ultraviolet light, which means they see more colours and shades than humans.

Hens have around 30 unique vocalisations to communicate anything from danger warnings to contentment. Some even purr like a cat when they’re very happy. 

Hens enjoy ‘dustbathing’ which helps them to remove parasites and also keeps them clean. Unwanted oil on birds’ feathers sticks to the dust, which they then shake off - and they spread fresh oil (from glands on their backs) onto their feathers to make them waterproof. 

20% of UK eggs still come from hens that lived in cages with useable living space the size of a large pancake which isn’t great.

The RSPCA Assured label means hens are not kept in cages. Instead, they live on free-range or organic farms - or in barns with plenty of space to move around. So, if you choose to eat eggs and want to avoid buying eggs from caged hens, always look for the RSPCA Assured logo.