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 and on Shrove Tuesday Christians went to confession and were “shriven” (absolved from their sins). It was the last opportunity to use eggs and fats before embarking on the Lenten fast and pancakes are the perfect way of using up these ingredients.

A thin, flat cake, made of batter and baked on a griddle or fried in a pan, the pancake has a very long history and featured in cookbooks as far back as 1439. The tradition of tossing or flipping them is almost as old.

Certainly these days part of the fun of cooking pancakes is in the tossing. To toss a pancake successfully takes a combination of the perfect pancake and good technique – it’s so easy to get it wrong and end up with half the pancake still stuck to the pan while the other half is stuck to the ceiling or floor. All in all, it’s probably best to practise a few times without an audience.

In the UK, pancake races also form an important part of the Shrove Tuesday celebrations – an opportunity for large numbers of people to race down the streets tossing pancakes.

source: BBC

Cuts into 10 slices
Calories per slice: 228
Fat per slice: 6,5g
Saturated fat per slice: 1,5g
Suitable for freezing: YES

–          350g gluten-free white bread flour

–          50g raisins

–          2 level tsp easy-bake, fast-action dried yeast

–          1tspb ground cinnamon

–          1 level tsp caster sugar

–          1 level tsp salt

–          1 level tsp xanthan gum

–          250ml milk

–          1 large egg

–          4 tbsp sunflower oil

–          1 tsp vinegar

–          1lb loaf tin, buttered

1.     Tipthe flour into a bowl and stir in the raisins, yeast, cinnamon, sugar, salt and xanthan gum and mix well. Mix together the milk, egg, oil and vinegar.

2.     Pourthe milk mixture into the flour and mix well to give a soft dropping consistency.

3.     Spoon the mixture into the tin and level the surface, leaving it slightly textured. Cover the tin loosely with oiled cling film and leave the loaf in a warm place to rise – until it’s risen above the rim of the tin.

4.     Set the oven to 220C or Gas Mark 7. Bake loaf in the centre of preheated oven for 30-40 mins, or until it sounds hollow when tapped underneath, covering with a sheet of foil if it starts to brown too quickly. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool. Serve sliced, spread with butter.

Wrap cold loaf in freezer bag and freeze for up to 1 month. Allow loaf to defrost before serving. Loaf may be refreshed in a hot oven for a few mins before serving.