Shrove Tuesday is quickly crép-ing up.
Pancake fans are gearing up to flip, stack and serve dozens of the sweet treat this coming Tuesday, February 21.
Many shoppers will be heading to their local supermarket this weekend to pick up those all important ingredients - but some will cost more than others.
To make your own traditional pancakes at home, you’ll need a few cupboard staple ingredients, including flour, eggs and milk for your batter, butter for the pan - or as a topping - and that classic sweet and zesty combination of lemon and sugar to serve them with.
But with the cost of living crisis still seeing shoppers keeping an eye on the pennis, some ingredients can set you back much more at some shops than others.
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The Manchester Evening News has taken a look at the price of those five ingredients at Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons, Aldi, M&S and Waitrose, and found a £2.91 difference in price between the cheapest and most expensive stores.
To get the figures, we worked out the price of 1.5kg of flour, which most stores stocked as standard. Some only had 500g bags, so we’ve multiplied the price by three to get the correct volume of flour at those particular stores. We also priced up six medium eggs, two pints of semi skimmed milk, 1kg of sugar, and 250g of butter.
We also priced up pre-packed lemons, of which there are typically four or five in a pack. We went for the cheapest pack available at each store, some of which are of ‘wonky’ varieties - but certainly will get the job done on Shrove Tuesday.
The most expensive places to buy the six main pancake ingredients were Marks and Spencer and Waitrose, costing £9.45 and £8 respectively.
At M&S 500g of plain white flour was 55p which had to be multiplied by three to get the correct amount of flour sold at other stores. It means you could potentially save money in buying smaller quantities of flour, but even then the ingredients would still cost £8.35, with eggs coming in at £1.83, milk at £1.30, and butter at £2.15. M&S sugar cost £1 for 1kg, while their five pack of lemons cost £1.50.
Waitrose came in second, where 1.5kg of flour cost 75p, recently reduced as part of the supermarket’s own brand price cuts. Their eggs are cheaper too, at £1.25, but two pints of milk costs £1.35 - 5p more than M&S. Meanwhile, 1kg of sugar costs 95p, while lemons are £1.70 for 4, and butter costs £2 for 250g.
At Morrisons, the ingredients would set you back £7.68, based on buying three 55p 500g flours. However, if you’re happy to buy less, it could work out at £6.58. Here, eggs cost £1.29 and milk £1.30. Four wonky lemons total just 50p, with butter coming in at £1.99 and sugar 95p.
At Asda, shoppers can pick up everything they need for pancake day for £7.01. Their Asda Just Essentials flour is only 58p for 1.5kg, but eggs can get pricy at £1.40. Semi-skimmed milk is consistently priced at £1.30m but 1kg of sugar comes in at £1.19. You can get a pack of Just Essentials lemons for 55p, though, with butter priced at £1.99.
This leaves Tesco, Aldi and Sainsbury’s battling for the cheapest supermarket title, but it’s Sainsbury’s who came in third, with their Shrove Tuesday shopping list costing £6.91. Butter, like at most of the other supermarkets, costs £1.99, but five lemons cost 69p. Sugar weighs in at 95p, with two pints of milk being £1.30 and eggs £1.40.
When it comes to flour, shoppers can get 1.5kg for 58p, or 500g for 45p. However, for how small the price difference is here, it’s well worth buying in bulk and keeping it in for future baking projects.
There was a difference of just 21p between Tesco and Aldi, with Tesco’s shop coming in at £6.77, and Aldi just less at £6.56.
Most of Tesco’s ingredients price matched Aldi, with both flours costing 58p, milk coming in at £1.30, sugar 95p and lemons 55p. Butter was £1.99 at both supermarkets, but it was the eggs where shoppers saw a price difference, with Aldi’s costing 21p less at £1.19, while Tesco’s cost £1.40.
And if you don't fancy making your own at home this year, we've rounded up some of our favourite spots to grab a stack in Manchester city centre here instead.
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