Early planning - pancake party

nabowla

I think I've just managed to volunteer to organise a pancake party for 30-40 people on Shrove Tuesday. Goodness only knows how that happened

One of the purposes of the party is to raise funds for our church's Restoration Appeal. I need to plan a menu that's cheap but really tasty so that we make a good profit and people think they're getting value for money. Obviously pancakes will feature heavily on the menu! However, experience has taught us that a lot of people come straight from work and want a hot meal before they have pancakes - the pancakes are seen as a pudding rather than a meal. I'm thinking about doing sausages and mash as it's very simple to do and filling (the guys who come tend to eat quite a lot of food!). What I'm looking for is suggestions for the following:

- interesting but cheap pancake fillings. They need to be easy to assemble in advance so that people can help themselves from a buffet table.
- recommendations for good, cheap flour. I tend to cook with brand-name flour because I don't really trust the cheap supermarket stuff. However I'm willing to give the cheap stuff a go if someone can reassure me that they've used it and it's fine.
- recommendations for good quality, cheap sausages (if such a thing is possible!) Does anyone know of large packs of sausages that I could buy instead of buying the little half-dozen packs? I normally only cook for myself so I've no idea about large value packs.

I've got reasonably easy access to Sainsbury's, Asda and Lidl, if that helps.

Any other bright ideas about what I could cook or what I should/shouldn't do? I've earned a bit of a reputation at church for being an OS guru so the pressure's on to come up with something fantastic :eek:

kiwichick

I'm vegie so dont know too much about sausages but Pooky posted
[post=1383183] THIS [/post] earlier.

HTH,
AL.

comping_cat

The obvious pancake filing would be sugar and lemon, if there will be children you could get those squeezy sauces that you can use on ice cream, maybe a bowl of fruit and some whipped cream, thats one of my favs!!!
Catherine x

pavlovs_dog

dont be a martyr - put a message in the church newletter saying that all donations of food and help are gratefully received

nabowla

Believe me, I've no intention of qualifying for martyrdom! I've already emailed my friends and told them that they're 'volun-told' for shifts of pancake tossing

MrsB_2

Sausages and mash sounds great, and always a hit, but wouldnt it be less work for you, and cheaper too, to do a big vat of something like a chilly with rice??

Pancake fillings;

Sugar and lemon (yum)
Chocolate spread
Jam
Sliced banana (not particularly cheap though)
Golden syrup

All I can come up with at the mo - sorry!!

kirstyreanne

What about doing bolognese/chilli etc. filled pancakes as a savoury first course rather than sausage & mash? I'm sure I've seen a scrummy canneloni sort of dish in the recipe board thread somewhere.

rchddap1

You lot are making me hungry....again. I love pancakes with surgar and lemon. Wonder if I could squeeze some in over the weekend?

pavlovs_dog

bread (rolls perhaps) as a starter/for mopping up..officially anyway (it should help fill people up)

same again with a constant supply of drinking water to take the edge off big appetites