Stephen and I threw a last-minute Pancake Day party on Tuesday, and had great fun. We used 3l of milk, 10 eggs, and more than a kilo of flour – all happily devoured by ten hungry engineers 
A couple of people have now asked me for the basic pancake recipe, so here goes.
You’ll need 600ml of milk, two eggs, and 225g flour. The milk doesn’t have to be fresh – when I was a kid, we loved it when milk went sour, because it meant we’d get pancakes!
If you’re making it in an electric mixer, check the instructions, and just throw everything in and blitz it until it’s smooth.
If you’re doing it the old-fashioned way, put the flour in a bowl, make a hole in the middle of the flour, and break in the eggs. Mix in a small amount of milk with the eggs, and then mix the egg-milk mixture into the flour until you have a solid, doughy lump. Slowly add milk and keep mixing and stirring, until you have a beautiful, lump-free pancake batter.
Ideally, you should let the batter stand – half an hour if you can, overnight is even better (although you’ll need to mix it again in the morning, and might need to add another drop of milk).
Make sure the pan is super hot – the first pancake is nearly always dud, and it’s nearly always because you haven’t waited long enough for the pan to heat. Pour some batter in, cook it until it comes off the pan easily, flip, and repeat.
Hey presto, pancakes!