Talk:Pancake

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The pancake page seems incomplete without a discussion of Pancake Day (aka. Shrove Tuesday, Mardi Gras etc.). Trouble is, I'm not sure if it's an exclusively British tradition to have pancakes then. Also, how about putting up a recipe for pancake batter? -- Magnus

Pancakes on Mardi Gras?!? This USian is baffled. Sounds like a wonderful thing to add, though - certainly as relevant as IHOP. -- User:DavidWBrooks

Actually, there is a pancake flipping race held on Shrove Tuesday between a town in England and a town in Kansas, but I can't remember the names of the towns. RickK 01:44, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I just added a bit about pancake races, I didn't know there was one linked to the US. What do you mean by "between"? I'm picturing people running across the ocean flipping pancakes now! fabiform | talk 01:49, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

LOL! The two towns (turns out it's Olney, England and Liberal, Kansas) race along an agreed-upon-length course, and the times are compared. The competitors have to flip their pancakes at the start and at the end of the race, and keep it on the griddle. RickK 04:27, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I don't know how common it is in the US, but's not just a British tradition to have pancakes on Shrove tuesday. My church would have a pancake dinner on that day while I was growing up (in Maryland.) Isomorphic 01:50, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I've removed the following from the article as it seems confusing (these are very different but unexplained recipies) and perhaps better suited to wikibooks? I've added two links to pancake recipies. fabiform | talk 01:39, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

A common recipe for pancake batter:

4 1/2 cups flour

1/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. salt

1 pkg. dry yeast

4 cups milk

1/2 cup butter

6 eggs

Combine and beat until smooth. Lightly grease griddle and pour 1/4 cup batter onto hot surface for each pancake. Turn when edges look cooked and bubbles begin to break on surface.

For extra light pancakes, mix some beer in with the batter.

It is also possible to follow a simpler recipe, without exact measurements. First, break an egg into a bowl. Mix in plain white flour until a smooth paste is formed and then dilute with milk until the consistency is suitable for pouring. Heat a small amount of some kind of cooking fat or cooking oil in a small frying pan and pour in enough mixture to thinly cover the base of the pan (leaving a little room round the edge). When the mixture appears to be reasonably cooked on the base (the top side will change in appearance), either turn or flip the pancake to cook the reverse.

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Flapjack redirects to Pancake, but there's no reference to flapjacks in the pancake article. I'm assuming that a flapjack is another name for a British pancake. Lee M 22:45, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Not where I come from (South east England) a flap jack is a cake/biscuit sort of thing made from rolled oats golden syrup (Corn syrup?) and butter. Quite nice but nithing like a pancake.

It seems to be American, as Theresa says British flapjacks are sweet oaty things, like a musli bar almost. fabiform | talk 23:29, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC) [1]:

FLAPJACK: Dictionary Entry and Meaning
Pronunciation: 'flap`jak
WordNet Dictionary

• Definition: [n] a flat cake of thin batter fried on both sides on a griddle
• Synonyms: battercake, flannelcake, flapcake, griddlecake, hot cake, hotcake, pancake

They are indeed oaty bar things. I'm quite fond of the Fabulous Bakin' Boys' Mighty Oat flapjack with my post-exam coffee/ pre-revision coffee. So I've changed the flapjack page to include the description and a link to here. Sockatume 06:45, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

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• The pancake article says that British pancakes are similar to, but not exactly the same as French crepes, the latter being "lacy" in appearance. There is an external link to a British recipe for pancakes -- the recipe looks to me almost exactly like the Jacques Pepin recipe I use to make French crepes. And the accompanying photograph looks just like a crepe, including the "lacy" brown areas.Hayford Peirce 22:39, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Swedish pancakes 2 "Scottish-style photos 3 time to disambiguate? 4 Silver dollar? 5 Invention 6 Brazil

[edit] Swedish pancakes

Pannkakor redirects here to Pancake, but aren't Swedish pancakes slightly different from regular American ones? -- Beland 00:11, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't know, I haven't eaten american pancakes. The swedish ones are similar to crepes, there is also a thicker variant, which is fried in the oven, I think...

Info added on types of Swedish pancakes, the names of Swedish pancakes are 'Pannkaka/Pannkakor' 'Plätt/Plättar' 'Småplätt/Småplättar' 'Ugnspannkaka/Ugnspannkakor' 'Fläskpannkaka/Fläskpannkakor' (with pork) 'Raggmunk/Raggmunkar' (potato pancake) 'Råraka/Rårakor' (potato pancake without actual pancake batter). However, which name corresponds to the "British", small and "German" pancake (when not including pork) varies depending on part of the country. It might be worth the trouble to make a separate pages for the Swedish pancakes clearing up what names correspond to what pancake in different parts of country, but would clutter the main pancake article too much.

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The date 1439 seems to be an error, possibly propagated by a BBC article on pancakes available on the internet. As far as I have been able to determine, the first English language recipe for pancakes is given in HARLEIAN MS. 279 (c. 1430-1440), and the number 1439 probably refers to ASHMOLE MS. 1439, which was published together with the former (and others) in 1888. See for yourself: here. Burschik 13:14, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "Scottish-style photos

I rolled back the addition of two pictures of store-packaged pancakes that appeared to be making a joke about the labels. If not, I apologize - but if they were meant seriously, I'm afraid they are terrible pictures that show nothing. - DavidWBrooks 02:35, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] time to disambiguate?

There are an awful lot of "see also" articles linked at the bottom which have nothing to do with pancakes as food. Do people think it is time to move this article to Pancake (food), turning this into a disambiguation article - or do people think the food meaning so overwhelming that we should leave this as the main article and put this at the top:

'For more meanings, see Pancake (disambiguation)

Any thoughts? (Note to non-administrators: If you like the idea of moving the article, don't try to do it with a cut-and-paste, as that loses the talk page. It requires a special Move function) - DavidWBrooks 17:38, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Guess I'll do the latter, then ... - DavidWBrooks 19:10, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Silver dollar?

The article compares Scottish pancakes to silver dollars, but I've never eaten one (of the pancakes, not the coins) less than 3" across (or seen one in the shops smaller than that size). Could do with confirmation regarding the size of the US currency (I'm assuming it's not 3" across) because it seems that Silver Dollar pancakes and Scotch pancakes are something else entirely. User:Sockatume10:13, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Most United States Silver Dollars were a little less than 40 mm in diameter. "Silver dollar pancake" uses that as a metaphor: they aren't actually that small, but they are much smaller than most pancakes. Jonathunder 14:18, 1 February 2006 (UTC)

Is the picture really correct. I was brought up with Highland cooking and a drop scone (what is called elsewhere a Scotch pancake) is smaller, or the same size as a muffin, but the picture shows otherwise. That pancake doesn't look like a drop scone to me. Francis Davey 18:00, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The pancake in the picture added on 9 March (with the folded fruit crumpet) was sourced from the East End Bakers, Kempock Street, Gourock: see that article for a photo in the bakers' shop, and it was measured by me as being 110 x 18mm. When my mother made drop pancakes to the same recipe they turned out much smaller (some probably about silver dollar size!) so that may be what you remember. ...dave souza, talk 17:33, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Hey, um, is it just me, or does this page use the word "savoury" way too much? -- Monk of the highest order 15:58, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Invention

Who, or where, invented pancakes? What is their origins? Kaiser matias 05:43, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Maybe somebody can give evidence otherwise, but I suspect this is one of those basic foods that was invented many times in many places. Might as well ask who invented the cake. - DavidWBrooks 11:07, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

I've always heard it was a way of getting rid of all the ingredients in the house that might spoil, in preparation for Lent. Sounds ridiculous to me, one of those things parents and teachers make up to send intelligent. They basically said that was how it was invented... 81.104.102.54 11:53, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

We should start this article with maybe a general description of pancakes...perhaps what all of the different types of pancakes have in common before breaking out into different types of pancakes as well has a history/invention section. How different past cultures have prepared the pancake? Pnkrockr 14:04, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Brazil

On the subject of French crêpes the article includes: ... Brazil (where they're usually called pancake ...). This is very odd. Do the Brazilians really use the English word "pancake" to refer to French crêpes when speaking Portuguese? -- Picapica 20:25, 2 September 2006 (UTC)