Buddies ~ Pancakes

***In September 2011 6 families got together and started Buddies Home School. Each week we meet in each other's home and follow a simple rhythm: movement and music, craft/ baking, snack time, free play and story time. Each part of the session is led by a different family. We are sharing this week's session with you here...***

This year Shrove Tuesday falls on February the 21st. But we have something special planned for Buddies next week so we decided to make today our pancake celebration.

Shrove Tuesday (Pancake Day) falls 47 days before Easter Sunday. It marks the beginning of Lent in the Christian calendar. Pancakes are tradtionally made on this day to use up the eggs, sugar and fat that are not allowed during the fasting season of Lent.

We started the session with some songs using finger puppets. We also repeated the Hop Little Bunnies song we learnt last week and that is much loved. To end movement and music we learnt this little pancake rhyme:

Mix the pancake
Stir the pancake
Pop it in the pan
Fry the pancake,
Flip the pancake
Catch it if you can

from Festivals Family and Food

We put on our aprons and rolled up our sleeves and gathered around the kitchen table to make scotch pancakes together.

(this is Amanda's receipe it makes about 8 pancakes...we x3 the recipe to make plenty for all of the buddies).

put 4oz self raising flour in a bowl and add 2 tbsp sugar (this is optional)

crack an egg into a bowl (handy tip: if you have small bits of shell in your mixture use another piece of shell to fish it out, it is much easier than fingers!)

beat the egg

pour in enough milk to make the liquid up to 6 floz.

mix...

and mix...
Make a well in the flour and add the liquid slowly beating as you go.

Beat the mixture until little bubbles appear it should be like thick double cream. In the mean time Amanda heated a little oil with a little butter in a frying pan.

While the kids were washing their hands, chopping fruit and clearing the table Amanda stood at the stove plopping pancake batter into the pan.

When there are bubbles appearing and popping they are ready to flip...

We made a stack and ate them hot..

and they were pretty delicious :-)

After free play which was very calm again this week Roisin read this story for us...

It was well enjoyed...

by all :-)

Happy Pancake Day :-)