I thought my mother was making “Pancake Tuesday” up when I was little. Not that I was complaining. If she wanted to create some fantasy holiday that obliged us to make pancakes, that was fine with me. I was a little surprised when she adhered to it religiously. One Wednesday she realized aloud and with alarm “we missed Pancake Tuesday!” and promptly made batter in an attempt to make up for it. Why not just move it to next Tuesday, I thought, but again, those were thoughts I kept to myself white waiting for the cakes to start hitting the plates.
It wasn’t a “holiday” I adopted when I started cooking. I like pancakes but being a sweeter breakfast food, it’s not something that’s usually on my radar. But then I came across this recipe on food52 for David Eyre’s great big skillet pancake. The novelty of it, and the similarity to a slightly sweet and citrusy skillet pancake I’d recently enjoyed intrigued me. I bookmarked it and found myself looking for a reason to make it, but thankfully I didn’t have to wait–or make one up. Pancake Tuesday is here.
I made the one in the picture above less than an hour ago. It was much lighter and fluffier than I thought it was going to be. And dressed with lemon juice and a fine dusting of sugar, I didn’t even want jam or syrup on the side. It needed nothing, especially not forks. We just tore pieces straight from the pan with our hands and I highly recommend you do the same. It’s better for enjoying the texture which is such a big part of why this pancake is great.