Pancake Tuesday is the day to use up excess eggs, butter and milk

They’re made with flour, baking soda, sugar, eggs and buttermilk and are light and fluffy. It’s a similar story across the pond in America – stacks of them are served with a liberal dousing of maple syrup.

In England the favoured variety of pancake is the French crepe. Eggs, flour and milk are combined to a thin batter and spread over a pan and then flipped.

Pancake flipping races are customary now across Britain and the practice is said to have originated with a housewife from Olney in Buckinghamshire. She became so absorbed in cooking her pancakes that when the bells rang for church she rushed out of the house with her pan still in her hand.

There’s still an all woman pancake race in the town to this day and they even participate in a transatlantic race off with the town of Liberal in Kansas. Whether you like pancakes or crepes is irrelevant because they’re both delicious and versatile, either with a sweet or savoury element.

When I was a student in Belfast in the eighties, there was a restaurant called Frogites in Bradbury Place. They served crepes with a variety of fillings at a very reasonable price for an impoverished student.

My favourite was a savoury mince version topped with cheesy sauce and I’ve recreated it for one of this week’s recipes – still ticks the boxes for me after all these years. Sadly the restaurant closed years ago but the pancake brought back fond memories.

While the crepe has a savoury filling, I’ve included a recipe for a good old fashioned Ulster fluffy pancake too with an apple compote.

You could just serve them straight from the griddle with butter and honey or jam to equal effect but I like the sweet, sharp apple combination with the warm pancakes.

Whatever you’re doing Happy Pancake Day!