The classic British pancake is three things: 100g plain flour, 2 large eggs and 300ml milk. Whisk them smooth with a pinch of salt, rest the batter for half an hour, then cook each pancake for about a minute a side in a hot, lightly greased pan. That ratio makes eight thin pancakes — enough for four people with lemon and sugar.
These are the proper British kind: thin, lacy at the edges, somewhere between a crumpet’s plump cousin and a French crêpe. Not the tall American stack — those need a raising agent and belong to a different breakfast entirely (more on that below). What follows is the recipe worth committing to memory, plus the handful of things that separate a good batch from a sulky, torn, first-pancake-in-the-bin one.
Key takeaways
- The ratio: 100g plain flour : 2 large eggs : 300ml milk, plus a pinch of salt. Makes 8 thin pancakes.
- Easy way to remember it: 50g flour : 1 egg : 150ml milk per portion. Scale straight up from there.
- Rest the batter for 30 minutes if you can — it makes the pancakes more tender and easier to spread.
- Plain flour, not self-raising. The whole point of a British pancake is that it stays thin.
- Pancake Day 2027 is Tuesday 9 February; 2028 is Tuesday 29 February.
The recipe: classic British pancakes
This is the easy pancake recipe you will reach for every Shrove Tuesday and, once it is in your hands, on plenty of ordinary Saturdays too. It uses storecupboard ingredients you almost certainly have already, and it forgives a wobbly first attempt.
Classic British Pancakes
Thin, crêpe-style pancakes for lemon and sugar — or anything you like
Makes 8 pancakes · Serves 4 · Prep 5 min · Rest 30 min · Cook 20 min
Ingredients
- 100g plain flour
- 1 pinch of salt
- 2 large eggs
- 300ml milk (whole gives the richest result; semi-skimmed is fine)
- A little butter and a flavourless oil, such as sunflower, for frying
Method
- Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Crack in the eggs and add a splash of the milk.
- Whisk from the middle outwards, drawing in the flour a little at a time, until you have a thick, smooth paste with no lumps. Then whisk in the rest of the milk in a steady stream. You are after the consistency of single cream. Pour it into a jug — it makes the cooking far tidier.
- Rest the batter for 30 minutes if you have time (see why below). Up to a couple of hours in the fridge is fine.
- Melt a little butter with a few drops of oil and brush a thin film over an 18–20cm non-stick frying pan. Set it over a medium-high heat until the fat sizzles.
- Give the batter a quick stir, then pour in about 65ml — a small ladleful — and immediately tilt and swirl the pan so it runs out to a thin, even round.
- Cook for about a minute, until the top looks dry and the underside is golden. Loosen the edge, then flip or toss and cook the second side for 30–60 seconds.
- Slide onto a warm plate and keep covered while you make the rest, re-greasing the pan lightly between each. Stack them; they steam each other warm.
To serve the classic way: a sprinkle of caster sugar, a good squeeze of lemon, then roll up or fold into quarters.
The ratio, at a glance
Why you rest pancake batter
Resting is the step most people skip and the one that quietly does the most. When you whisk flour into liquid, two things happen: the gluten proteins tense up, and the starch granules begin, slowly, to drink in the water. Give the batter half an hour and the gluten relaxes while the starch fully hydrates. The result is a batter that pours and spreads more evenly, and a pancake that is tender rather than slightly rubbery.
Is it compulsory? No. Several good cooks make pancakes straight from the bowl and are perfectly happy. But if you have the half hour, take it — and if you are making the batter ahead, the fridge does the resting for you. The difference is small but real, and on Shrove Tuesday, with a queue of hungry people, small and real adds up.
The pan, the heat and the first-pancake problem
The first pancake nearly always disappoints, and it is not your fault. A pan that feels hot to your hand is often not yet hot evenly across its base, and there is usually a touch too much fat in it to start. So the first one cooks unevenly, sticks at the edge or browns in patches. This is so reliable that the kindest thing to do is accept it: cook the first pancake, judge your heat and batter quantity from it, and consider it the cook’s perk.
For the rest, use a heavy 18–20cm non-stick pan and keep it over a medium-high heat. You want the fat to sizzle the instant the batter hits — that is what sets the underside quickly and stops it sticking — but not so hot that it smokes and scorches. Grease lightly between pancakes with a wad of kitchen paper dipped in the butter-and-oil mix; pancakes need far less fat than people think, and a swimming pan gives you greasy, blotchy results.
The first pancake is a tuning round, not a failure. Cook it, taste it, adjust, and carry on.
Flipping (or tossing)
A thin pancake is set enough to turn once the top looks dry and the edges lift cleanly — about a minute in. Slide a palette knife or fish slice underneath and flip it over in one confident movement. Tossing is optional showmanship; if you fancy it, loosen the pancake first by shaking the pan, then jerk the pan up and slightly towards you. The second side needs only 30 to 60 seconds and will never colour as evenly as the first. That is normal, and it is the side you roll inwards.
How to scale it: from two of you to a full table
Because the ratio is so clean, scaling is pure arithmetic. Think of one portion as 50g flour : 1 egg : 150ml milk, which gives about four thin pancakes, and multiply up. Self-raising is never wanted here; keep it plain at every quantity.
| Feeding | Plain flour | Eggs | Milk | Makes (approx.) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 people (a light batch) | 50g | 1 | 150ml | 4 pancakes |
| 4 people (the standard) | 100g | 2 | 300ml | 8 pancakes |
| 6 people | 150g | 3 | 450ml | 12 pancakes |
| 8 people (a crowd) | 200g | 4 | 600ml | 16 pancakes |
| 12 people (a party) | 300g | 6 | 900ml | 24 pancakes |
For a big batch, make the batter in a jug or two and keep the cooked pancakes warm, stacked and loosely covered, in a low oven at 110C (90C fan) while you work through it.
Make ahead, batch and freeze
Pancakes are one of the great make-ahead dishes, which is exactly what you want when you are feeding a crowd and would rather not be chained to the hob. You can:
- Make the batter the night before. Cover it and keep it in the fridge. Give it a brisk whisk before using, as the flour settles.
- Cook them in advance. Plain (no sugar or lemon yet), they keep covered in the fridge for two to three days.
- Freeze them. Cool completely, then stack with a square of baking parchment between each so they peel apart, seal well, and freeze for up to three months. Defrost in the fridge or at room temperature, or reheat straight from frozen.
To reheat: a single pancake takes 15 to 20 seconds in the microwave; a stack wrapped in foil takes 5 to 10 minutes in a medium oven; or refresh them one at a time in a dry pan for 20 to 30 seconds a side. A make-ahead batch also means nothing is wasted — leftovers reheat as well as they cook fresh, which is the opposite of most things you fry.
Toppings: the classic and the clever
Lemon and sugar is the one to beat, and for good reason — the sharpness cuts the richness and the sugar gives a faint crunch. But the same thin pancake is a blank canvas:
- The classic: caster sugar and a squeeze of fresh lemon, rolled up. A bottle of squeezy lemon does the job if fresh is not to hand.
- Sweet: good jam or marmalade; sliced banana; a little honey or maple syrup; chocolate hazelnut spread; stewed apple or berries.
- A touch grander: orange juice and zest with a dusting of icing sugar — the gentler, brighter cousin of lemon and sugar.
- Savoury: the batter has no sugar, so it turns savoury happily — ham and grated cheese folded in and warmed through, or spinach and ricotta, or mushrooms in a little cream.
And when the pancakes are doing duty in a full weekend breakfast — crisp bacon, the works — a poached egg sits very happily on top. Our poached egg timer has the timings for the pan, the microwave and the air fryer.
Dairy-free, egg-free and lower-cost swaps
None of this needs to be expensive or exclude anyone at the table, and the basic recipe flexes more easily than its reputation suggests.
- Dairy-free: swap the milk for an unsweetened oat or soya milk, measure for measure, and use oil rather than butter to fry. Oat milk browns particularly well. The pancakes are every bit as good.
- Egg-free: eggs do real work here (they set the batter and add richness), so a fully eggless thin pancake is a little more fragile. The simplest route is to use self-raising flour instead of plain and a touch less milk, which gives a softer, slightly thicker pancake that holds together without eggs. Treat it as a different, sturdier pancake rather than a like-for-like crêpe.
- Cheapest possible: at heart this is flour, eggs and milk — pennies a head, and a packet of plain flour makes batch after batch. There is no need for a special pancake pan, ready-made batter or a branded mix; a single ordinary frying pan and a whisk are all the kit required.
British, French or American: which pancake is which
It matters mostly for getting the result you pictured. British pancakes are thin and made with plain flour, eggs and milk — no raising agent — and traditionally served with lemon and sugar on Shrove Tuesday. French crêpes are the closest relative: a little larger and sometimes thinner still, often with a spoon of melted butter in the batter. American pancakes are the outlier — thick, fluffy and stacked, made with a raising agent (baking powder) and usually a little sugar, served with butter and syrup. Scotch pancakes and Welsh crempog sit on the thick, drop-pancake side too. If you came here for the stack, you want a recipe with baking powder; if you came for Pancake Day, this is the one.
Troubleshooting: why your pancakes went wrong
Almost every pancake fault traces back to one of four things: the batter consistency, the heat, the fat, or rushing the turn. Here is the quick diagnosis.
| What went wrong | Likely cause | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Rubbery or chewy | Batter over-whisked, or not rested | Whisk only until smooth; rest 30 minutes |
| Too thick, won’t spread | Batter too thick; pan not tilted fast enough | Loosen with a splash of milk to single-cream; swirl the moment it goes in |
| Sticking or tearing | Pan not hot enough, or turned too soon | Wait for the sizzle; flip only when the top looks dry and edges lift |
| Pale and limp | Heat too low | Raise to medium-high; the fat should sizzle on contact |
| Greasy or blotchy | Too much fat in the pan | Grease thinly with kitchen paper; wipe off any excess |
| Lumpy batter | Milk added too fast at the start | Add the first milk slowly to a paste, then loosen; or pass through a sieve |
When is Pancake Day? Shrove Tuesday explained
Pancake Day 2027 falls on Tuesday 9 February. In 2028 it is Tuesday 29 February — a leap-year Shrove Tuesday, which is a rarity worth a note in the diary. The date moves each year because Shrove Tuesday is tied to Easter: it is always the day before Ash Wednesday, which is 47 days before Easter Sunday (28 March in 2027).
The name comes from “shrive”, to confess and be absolved before Lent, the 40 days of fasting that begin the next day. Pancakes earned their place because they use up the rich storecupboard staples — eggs, milk and fat — that were traditionally given up for Lent. Whether or not the fast follows, the pancakes endure, which says something cheering about priorities.
Worth a look next
If batter is your friend now, two more from the same family are worth knowing: our tall, crisp Yorkshire pudding uses the very same flour, eggs and milk to a quite different end, and a quick microwave steamed pudding is the pudding to make when time is short. For the make-ahead cook, our notes on freezing butter and the best potatoes for roasting round out the Sunday-cooking shelf.
Frequently asked questions
What is the ratio for pancake batter?
The classic British ratio is 100g plain flour to 2 large eggs to 300ml milk, with a pinch of salt. That makes eight thin pancakes. Per portion, think 50g flour, 1 egg and 150ml milk.
Do you have to rest pancake batter?
No, but it helps. Resting for 30 minutes lets the gluten relax and the starch absorb the liquid, which gives a more even, tender pancake. If you are short of time you can cook straight away; the difference is small.
Why is the first pancake always bad?
Because the pan is rarely heated evenly yet and usually holds a little too much fat. Treat the first pancake as a test: it tells you whether your heat and batter quantity are right, then the rest behave.
Plain or self-raising flour for pancakes?
Plain flour for thin British pancakes and crêpes — you do not want them to rise. Self-raising belongs to thick, fluffy American-style or Scotch pancakes.
Can you make pancake batter the night before?
Yes. Cover and keep it in the fridge, then whisk it briefly before cooking, as the flour settles. Overnight resting only improves it.
Can you freeze pancakes?
Yes, for up to three months. Cool them, stack with baking parchment between each so they separate, seal well and freeze. Reheat from frozen in the microwave, oven or a dry pan.
What is the difference between pancakes and crêpes?
Very little. British pancakes are essentially crêpes by another name — thin, made from flour, eggs and milk. French crêpes tend to be a touch larger and sometimes thinner, often with melted butter in the batter. American pancakes are the different ones: thick and raised.
Recipe by Linda Garrould. Updated 14 June 2026. General home-cooking guidance; adjust for any allergies or dietary needs. CookeryShrove TuesdayRecipe
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