Pancake Day, the Dutch Way

For my favourite version, I begin with the bacon. I fry it first, then pour the batter around it so it becomes part of the pancake.

I cook the pancake on both sides. If I am having apple, that goes on afterwards. The cheese comes towards the end, for roughly the final fifty seconds, so it has time to melt.

Then comes the stroop — Dutch pancake syrup — to finish it. That sweet-and-savoury combination is what I look forward to.

If you are used to a small, thick breakfast stack, this is a different sort of pancake meal. Here I am talking about the large Dutch pancakes I make with the filling baked in and the toppings added in the pan or at the table.

There is enough overlap in our tastes to make pancakes an easy choice, with plenty of room for each of us to have what we want.

Sometimes I make a big stack. Sometimes we make them one at a time, particularly when we want every pancake to be different. It depends on what we feel like having.

When I make pancakes, I generally use a ready-made mix from the supermarket. I do not stick to a particular brand; it is usually whatever ordinary mix I pick up.

It is convenience, really. I love eating pancakes, and using a mix makes it easy to have them regularly.

These days I try to use lactose-free milk, because regular milk quickly gives me stomach discomfort. I prepare the batter according to the packet instructions, using my preferred milk where the mix calls for it.

The part that feels particularly mine is what happens in the pan: bacon first, batter around it, both sides cooked, apple if I am having it, and cheese melted at the end. I do not need an elaborate batter ritual to enjoy that.

If you want to try the combination, this is the order I use:

Use the packet guidance and what is happening in your pan to judge the batter and cooking. The sequence above is my way of adding the filling, rather than a separate measured batter recipe.

There is also the little-pancake side of this story: poffertjes, the small Dutch pancakes made in a pan or maker with little hollows.

In my Short below, you can see me making them while trying a Bestron poffertjes maker. There is batter going into the hollows and, towards the end, a plate of little pancakes getting a dusting of icing sugar.

[Watch me making poffertjes in the Bestron maker](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/scHKzfXt3Tg).

It is a little cooking moment from my own kitchen. The video is not the method for the large bacon-and-cheese pancake above: the poffertjes maker and its small portions have their own place here.

We both love maple syrup, and I wanted this Short to have a place in the article too. Here you can see me pouring it from a little jug over a stack of thick American-style pancakes.

[Watch my maple-syrup pancake Short](https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wMN1n_d9mG0).

These are the thicker breakfast pancakes, rather than the large Dutch pancakes or the poffertjes in the other video. All three fit my enthusiasm for pancakes, even if they do not belong to the same recipe.

For more of the breakfasts I share, there is The Breakfast Table.

Pancake Day is also called Shrove Tuesday, the day before Ash Wednesday. Its date moves with Easter. The Church of England's explanation of Pancake Day gives the background to the tradition.

In 2027, it falls on Tuesday 9 February. The Church of England's calendar of variable dates lists Ash Wednesday as 10 February that year.

For us, putting it in the diary is a bit of fun. We already eat pancakes regularly, so I am very happy to take another opportunity. Bacon, cheese and stroop would be a strong contender for mine.