19 February 2023 , 10:00
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In the run-up to Shrove Tuesday, or Pancake Day as many people now know it, people will be stocking up on flour, eggs and milk to whip up a batter for their pancakes on February 21.
But according to a chef, if you really want to make the tastiest pancakes, you'll need to get mixing with the batter on February 20.
Oliver Marlowe, the chef director and owner of The Ganymede in London, has been sharing his top cooking tips with The Mirror, and the pro claims that the trick to making anything with a batter is to give it sufficient time to rest.
Oliver says the most important thing is to rest your batter (Courtney Pochin/ Daily Mirror)Some people will often encourage you to leave your batter for just ten minutes before getting cooking, but this would be a mistake.
Instead, Oliver recommends making up the batter the night before you want to sit down and eat your pancakes and leaving it in the fridge overnight.
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"Resting your batter is the most important step as it lets the gluten rest," the chef explains.
"What happens overnight is that all that gluten you've mixed together relaxes down and increases in size and aerates," the chef explains.
Allowing the batter to rest will help you make the 'perfect' pancakes (stock photo) (Getty Images/iStockphoto)This in turn allows for any lumps to naturally smooth out and will save you from over mixing your batter and making the pancakes too tough. It will also help give them rise when you start cooking.
Oliver goes on to say that not letting pancake batter rest is often the prime reason why the first pancake is rubbish and needs to be thrown out.
The second pancake is always better as the batter has had more time to rest.
And this trick doesn't just improve your pancakes, it's also handy when making Yorkshire puddings, toad in the hole and even bread.
Other top tips include making your batter with ingredients that are at room temperature, instead of using milk and eggs straight out of the fridge.
And if you're unsure how to make a pancake, we previously pitted celebrity chef recipes from Mary Berry and Gordon Ramsay against a ready-made pancake shaker mix that was £1 from Tesco to see which is best and ended up making "amazing" crepe-style pancakes.
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