Shrove Tuesday

Published Date

Written by Ellie Edwards

Shrove Tuesday is a blissful day, it is the day that traditionally people used up their leftover food before the 40 days of lent. A tradition that originated in biblical times. Nowadays it is more likely referred to as ‘Pancake day’, a day where people are more likely to buy the ingredients for pancakes rather than use up leftovers!

It is often the case that people choose to give something up for lent that they have a particular love for, be this carbs, cake or chocolate. I always take Shrove Tuesday to be a day where you can gorge on the item about to be given up for a long 40 days. 40 days filled with regret and longing for that bar of chocolate hidden at the back of your cupboard in order to resist all temptation. This year, I have set my poor unwitting self the challenge of giving up cake. Cake is a particular soft spot of mine; I love testing out different flavours, be it plum and hazelnut crumble cake or an orange blossom and pecan. But, alas, for the next 40 days I shall fill my time with baking bread instead and I hope to soon become for trained in the field of sourdough and soft centres instead of rich buttercreams!

Not only are pancakes quick and easy to make, they are delicious too! I enjoy pancakes which are more like crepes, a very thin spreading of batter in the pan so that they go crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. My filling favourite has to be nutella and banana, despite it breaking from tradition I love the nutty gooey chocolate spread with the soft banana and the roasted taste of the hazelnuts! A perfect match in my opinion!

This is why, ‘pancake day’ is so good, it means that everyone can feast on crepes filled with lemon and sugar, nutella and banana or another combinations that shouldn’t work, but only today they do! It means that you can let your waistline go wild for the day. It is a day to let yourself go and eat what you want. Food is there to be enjoyed and so why should you stick to your detox on such a marvellous day!? Have fun flipping the pancakes, filling the pancakes and feasting on the pancakes!

Crepes with Nutella and Banana

100g plain flour
A pinch of salt
1 egg beaten
1 egg yolk
300ml milk
1 tablespoon of oil
Oil for cooking
A generous spread of nutella
1 sliced banana
A sprinkle of chopped hazelnuts

Sift the flour with the salt in a bowl and make a well in the bottom of the mixture. Mix in the egg, egg yolk and a little milk with the flour gradually and add more milk to stop it from getting too thick. Add the remaining milk and the oil until it is a thin batter. Cover and chill for 30 minutes. Heat a frying pan with the oil until hot. Drop in a spoonful of the batter and tilt the pan so the batter is evenly spread. When the pancake is golden, flip it with a palette knife (the first one always goes wrong!). Spread the nutella on the pancakes, add the sliced banana and chopped hazelnuts and enjoy!

Aspire Drinks

Published Date

Written by Lola

We're always willing to try new things in the Scratch office, especially if it saves time and helps us out a bit with our waistlines. The guys at Aspire sent us over quite a bit of their calorie burning drinks for us to try. We were a bit skeptical at first, even debated washing a hefty serving of chips down with an Aspire every day they would last to put it's calorie burning powers to the test. We put the chip to bed as we don't yet have a daily chip budget set up, and instead gave Aspire drinks a try throughout the week.



They're packed with loads of caffeine to keep us going at the office and they taste a lot better than some of the "diet" drinks we've tried. The cranberry isn't nearly as tart as your average cranberry juice and the carbonation adds to the lightness of the drink. It's not so sugary and sweet that it leaves a film in your mouth like some drinks and, as excited about exercise as we can get (Lola's a regular gym go-er and Alex is getting some personal training in), we have to admit that burning an average of 200 calories a can is a pretty nifty upside.

You can buy Aspire online on their website or check to find a stockist nearest to you. Thanks to the guys at Aspire for letting us give the drinks a try!

Evernote Food Review

Published Date

Written by Juliane Caillouette Noble

Our regular blogger Juliane Caillouette Noble decided to review the Evernote Food app for us this week. Evernote Food is a free app that allows users to keep track of their favourite dishes at venues or your own recipes at home using photos, captions, and other tools. An ideal app for a foodie, frequent restaurant go-er, or a food blogger like Juliane, Evernote Food lets you keep all of your food adventures in one easy place.

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I had the most extraordinary tapas in Barcelona. The building was stone and down an alley that opened up on a square. The asparagus was extraordinary. I would highly, passionately recommend it to anyone who is travelling through Spain… the trouble is, I can’t for the life of me remember the name. I’ve saved business cards, matchboxes, and napkins from restaurants that have inspired me over the years- kept them in a place so safe that I have no idea where they are.



Does this sound familiar? Enter Evernote Food, the newest app brought to you by the Evernote team. The app is so simple you probably wish you’d thought of it. Snap a photo, jot down where you are and what you ate, and the app stores it. It's streamline, easy and well designed. So in five years, all you have to do is flip back and there you have it, the photo of the delicious asparagus and the address of the tapas bar in Barcelona.

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The Evernote Food app is free for anyone to download from the iTunes store, but premium Evernote accounts aren't free. We're giving two lucky people codes for free premium Evernote accounts! From February 13th until February 20th, anyone who likes us on our Facebook page, will be entered to win a premium Evernote account. We'll draw two lucky winners on February 22nd.

Winners announced here!