Easter starts on April 2 this year. Allowing for the 40 days of Lent, this means that today is Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Tuesday.
Traditionally the day when observant Christians used up all their supplies of eggs, butter and milk before their Lenten fasts, it has contributed to the culinary heritage of both France and Britain.
The Scots used a slightly thicker batter and made griddle cakes, or flapjacks, which were in turn adopted by colonial Americans and soon became the breakfast staple we know and love. Australians use a similar batter to make pikelets.
As if you needed an excuse.
Whether they are filled with Peking duck and spring onions and dipped into hoisin sauce, or blended with fines herbes and wrapped around mushrooms and other savoury morsels; whether they are served with Nutella and bananas from a street stall in Paris or in retro-style crêpes suzette, or commandeered into fluffy, stacked service at breakfast with ricotta, bananas and honeycomb at Bill's - we all love to eat them.
Cooking them is quite a different matter, however. American style pancakes, which use a much thicker batter, tend to be more forgiving of variables and are easier to work with. No wonder it's a favourite with children when they first start cooking. But then we look at those thin lacy crêpes and tell ourselves we could never do it. And truthfully, it can be a little hit and miss when first starting out. When I was learning, I was always advised to expect that the first crepe one cooked would always be underdone and should be binned. The trick for great crêpes is a good, clean, non-stick pan with no wonks or wobbles in the base, a great batter made in advance and the heat regulated at an even temperature. Oh, and patience to make them one at a time.
Or, you can just buy them in the supermarket. After all, you have a life.
Light and lacy though they are, crêpes are tremendously strong and useful when enveloping tasty fillings. Once served wrapped cigar-style around mornay sauced savouries, the trend these days is to stack the crêpes one on top of the other, sandwiched together with great fillings. Stephanie Alexander famously does a sensational crepe layered 'cake' with lemon curd and cream; Karen Martini does something similar with hazelnuts and chocolate. You can add spinach and herbs to the batter and then use the savoury crêpes to wrap around mushroom paté as a great accompaniment to drinks.
Or, you can just cook some bananas in brown sugar and Tia Maria and serve the sauce over the top of some crêpes while you're camping and in need of something other than baked beans and damper. It sounds crazy, but it really is how I came up with the following dish. As for why it was that I was camping and had a stash of Tia Maria - well, that's another story.
Banana Crêpes
Serves 4
8 crêpes, folded in quarters and kept warm
60g unsalted butter
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
zest and juice of 2 lemons
zest and juice of 2 oranges
1/2 cup Tia Maria or Kahlua
4 small or Lady Finger bananas
In a small non-stick fry-pan, melt the butter then add the sugar and zest and stir until sugar dissolves then reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes without stirring until the sugar starts to caramelise. With the pan tilted away from you, add the juice (it will spit) and stir until incorporated into the syrup. Peel bananas, cut in half lengthways and add to the saucepan side by side so they are covered by the syrup. Pour in the Tia Maria and flambé, shaking the pan.
To serve, place two warmed crêpes on a dessert plate, pour over sauce and two of the banana halves, and eat while warm with some honeycomb ice cream on the side.