Pancake Day 2025: Why do we celebrate Pancake Day?
Pancake Day 2025 is officially upon us, when eating piles of pancakes is almost compulsory and videos of disastrous ‘flipping’ attempts flood social media.
Arguably one of the best celebrations of the year, Pancake Day, known to Christians as Shrove Tuesday, takes place annually, but the exact date depends on when Easter falls.
Ready to decide on those all-important toppings? Let’s take a look at the history behind Pancake Day – and why we celebrate it.
When is Pancake Day 2025?
This year, Pancake Day takes place on Tuesday, March 4.
Shrove Tuesday always falls on the seventh week before Easter, and the day before Ash Wednesday.
It’s also the last day before Lent, which also begins on Ash Wednesday.
Why do we eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday?
Shrove Tuesday is traditionally for people to gain penance from God before they begin fasting, which is why it falls on the day before Lent, a 40-day period of fasting and reflection.
Shrove is the past tense of the word shrive, which means to present oneself to a priest for confession, penance, and absolution.
The day also marks the time for people to enjoy sweet, rich and fatty foods one last time before fasting begins. But why pancakes in particular?
Pancakes are traditionally eaten because they were a way to use the rich foods people had left over – such as eggs and milk – before they expired during the long fast.
Eggs, flour, salt and milk are said to represent the four pillars of the Christian faith.All the extras such as whipped cream, maple syrup, blueberries and chocolate are just (very delicious) modern additions.
Whether you like lashing pancakes in lemon and sugar, maple syrup, or topping with bananas and other fruit, there’s certainly lots of fun to be had with customising your own.
You might even choose to make savoury pancakes by using bacon or eggs as your topping. There are also gluten-free and vegan options.
But if you want to follow tradition, this is what the simple ingredients represent in Christianity – flour as the mainstay of the human diet, salt for wholesomeness, milk represents purity, and eggs represent creation.
How to make the perfect pancake
If you’re looking to produce a thicker pancake this year, these need a raising agent which produces carbon dioxide by itself when heated.
This is typically sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) or baking powder, a mixture of sodium bicarbonate with a weak acid-like cream of tartar. You might remember from chemistry lessons at school that when you mix an acid with a carbonate, you get a fizzing. This is the carbon dioxide gas.
Professor Peter Barham of the University of Bristol is one of the great experts on the science of cooking and he has some good advice about getting things right when making pancakes.
‘For a start, cooks always use too much batter’ and that the pan should be hot, but not too hot ‘almost smoking – but not blue smoke’ and should just have a smear of butter or fat,’ he previously told Metro.
Most chefs do not suggest a particular cooking temperature (moderate heat seems the norm).
The pan should be hot enough for the pancake to brown in less than a minute, but not so hot that the batter ‘sets’ when you put it on the pan, before it has time to spread. But all seem to agree on the importance of getting the right pan – a nice heavy, flat one, which will hold the heat well.
When is Pancake Day 2026?
Do you want to be one step ahead next year? Calendars at the ready, folks.
Pancake Day always falls on a Tuesday – and in 2026 it will take place on Tuesday, February 17.
This piece was originally published on February 17, 2025.
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