Lemon and sugar batter all other pancake toppings

Matthew SmithHead of Data Journalism
February 28, 2017, 12:00 AM GMT+0

The majority of Brits still like to have lemon (56%) and sugar (54%) on their pancakes for Shrove Tuesday

It’s Pancake Day today, and to celebrate YouGov surveyed more than 5,000 Brits on what toppings they like to have on their pancakes.

The majority of Brits still enjoy traditional pancake staples lemon and sugar, which top the toppings list at 56% and 54% respectively. Maple syrup comes in a distant third at 22%.

Only 1% of Brits like their pancakes au naturel, preferring to forego any toppings. Overall, 15% of Brits say they either don’t like or don’t eat pancakes.

Despite lemon and sugar being firm favourites for most of us, the results reveal still distinct splits between Brits when it comes to our pancake preferences.

Younger people (18-24 year olds), for instance, are much more enthusiastic about most of the toppings than Britons in general. They are particularly likely to want to pimp their pancake with chocolate spread when compared to the country as a whole (50% vs 17%).

By contrast, chocolate spread is almost completely eschewed by those aged 60 and over, with just 2% of older people saying they like to have it on their pancakes. They are instead more likely than the national average to want lemon juice as a topping (67%).

Scots, and to a lesser extent people in the North of England, are far less likely to want sugar or lemon on their pancakes than the rest of the UK – just 31% of Scots liked sugar and 34% like lemon. Instead, Scots tend to prefer maple syrup (32%), whilst Northerners a more likely to want golden syrup (22%) than their fellow Brits.

Londoners are much more likely to want chocolate spread on their pancakes than other areas of Britain, whilst people across the rest of the south of England are the most enthusiastic about the classic lemon and sugar toppings.

Photo: iStockphoto

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