How many calories in a pancake? British, American and Scotch

The word "pancake" names three different foods, depending on which side of the Atlantic you are standing on, and they do not cost the same.

A British pancake is thin and floppy, made in a frying pan, and eaten rolled up with lemon and sugar. An American pancake is thick and fluffy, made with a raising agent, and eaten in a stack under butter and syrup. A Scotch pancake sits between the two, small and thick, and is usually bought in a packet.

The surprising part is not the difference between them. It is that on a thin British pancake, the topping is usually heavier than the pancake.

The quick answer

Per 100g, cooked, before toppings.

The British figure comes from a standard batter: 100g plain flour (350 kcal), one large egg (72) and 300ml semi-skimmed milk (144), with about 2g of oil absorbed per pancake from the pan. That makes eight pancakes in a 20cm pan at roughly 89 kcal each. It is the recipe on the back of most flour bags, so it is what most people are actually eating.

The American figure is the USDA value for a plain pancake made from a recipe. Mixes and frozen versions land within about 10% of it.

Calories by weight

For anyone weighing the batch or the plate.

Calories by size

Most people do not weigh pancakes. They count them, so size matters more than recipe.

An 8-inch diner pancake is three times the calories of a 20cm British one, even though the diameters are similar. The difference is thickness, and a pancake that is three times thicker is three times the batter.

The toppings, per pancake

This is the table that matters. A thin pancake is a vehicle, and what rides on it decides the total.

A generous spread of chocolate hazelnut spread on a thin British pancake is 135 kcal against 89 for the pancake. The pancake is 40% of the plate. That is the correction most Pancake Day estimates miss: people count pancakes, and the pancakes are the smaller number.

Pancake Day, four toppings

Three thin British pancakes is a normal Shrove Tuesday serving. Here is what the same three pancakes cost under four common toppings.

The batter is identical in every row. The spread between the lightest and the heaviest is 468 kcal, and all of it comes from the jar.

The sugar line is worth a second look. Six teaspoons of sugar is 24g, close to the NHS limit of 30g of free sugars a day for adults, in a dessert that looks like the light option.

The American stack

An American pancake breakfast is a different shape of meal. The pancakes are the base, and the butter and syrup are measured in pats and pours rather than teaspoons.

The quarter-cup pour is the part that gets lost. 80g of maple syrup is 208 kcal, more than a whole 6-inch pancake, and carries about 48g of sugar, which is well over the 30g daily free-sugar limit in one pour. "Pancake syrup" in the US is usually a maple-flavoured corn syrup rather than maple, and per tablespoon it lands in the same range.

The bacon numbers come from the bacon calorie breakdown: an American streaky slice is around 43 kcal cooked.

Why the Scotch pancake is the densest

A Scotch pancake, or drop scone, is about 280 kcal per 100g against 178 for a thin British pancake. Two reasons:

1. Less liquid. The batter is thick enough to hold its shape on a griddle, so there is less milk and more flour per gram.
2. Sugar in the batter. Most Scotch pancake recipes and almost all packet versions add sugar, where a British pancake batter usually has none.

The saving grace is size. A packet Scotch pancake is around 30g, so one is 84 kcal, almost exactly the same as one thin homemade pancake. The trap is the packet: they come in sixes and eights, they are eaten cold from the bag, and four with butter is over 480 kcal.

UK and US words that trip up logging

Pancakes have more false friends than almost any other food in this Journal.

• Pancake. A British pancake is what an American calls a crepe. An American pancake is sold in British supermarkets as an "American pancake" or "American-style pancake". If you log a British pancake against a database entry for an American one, you overcount by around 2x.
• Flapjack. In the US, a flapjack is another word for a pancake. In the UK, a flapjack is a dense oat bar made with butter and golden syrup at roughly 460 kcal per 100g, so a 90g coffee-shop square is around 414. That is the single biggest logging error on this page, and it goes in both directions.
• Scotch pancake, drop scone and silver dollar pancake. Roughly the same idea: a small, thick pancake. A US silver dollar pancake is smaller and lighter, often under 50 kcal.
• Golden syrup. A British pantry staple with no direct US equivalent. It is an inverted sugar syrup, about 325 kcal per 100g, slightly denser than maple.
• Pancake Day and Shrove Tuesday. The same day. US readers will know it better as the day before Lent, or as Mardi Gras.

Pancake mistakes to avoid

Counting the pancakes and estimating the topping

The pancakes are the easy part to count and the smaller part of the total. Log the topping with an amount: a tablespoon of syrup is 52 to 65 kcal, a generous chocolate spread is 135.

Forgetting the pan fat

A teaspoon of butter in the pan before each pancake adds 36 kcal each, which turns an 89 kcal pancake into a 125 kcal one. Wiping the pan with a piece of kitchen paper dipped in oil gets the same non-stick result for a fraction of the fat.

Logging a crepe from a creperie as a homemade pancake

A 30cm crepe from a stall is 80g and has butter in the batter. It is 172 kcal before the filling, nearly double a homemade one. With a ham, egg and cheese filling it is a full meal.

Treating the protein pancake as a regular pancake

Protein pancakes made with cottage cheese, eggs or protein powder are a different food. Our cottage cheese protein pancakes are 470 kcal with 30g of protein for the whole plate. A thin British pancake carries about 3.4g of protein, so three of them give you around 10g.

Assuming the light topping is light

Lemon and sugar sounds like the restrained choice. At two teaspoons per pancake it is 33 kcal each and 8g of sugar each, which is reasonable, but it is not nothing, and it is not the 1 kcal of lemon on its own.

Three ways to keep Pancake Day under 500

The classic, done honestly (366 kcal)

• 3 thin pancakes (267 kcal)
• Lemon and 2 tsp sugar each (99 kcal)

Adds up to: 366 kcal. The traditional version is already the lighter one. The only decision is how heavy the spoon is.

The fruit and yogurt plate (387 kcal)

• 3 thin pancakes (267 kcal)
• 150g mixed berries (48 kcal)
• 6 tbsp 0% Greek yogurt split across the three (72 kcal)
• Lemon zest (no meaningful calories)

Adds up to: 387 kcal, plus a drizzle of honey if you want it sweeter (a teaspoon is about 21 kcal, see the honey breakdown). The yogurt adds around 12g of protein, which keeps this from being a pure sugar dessert. The Greek yogurt breakdown has the per-tablespoon figures.

The one indulgent pancake (387 kcal)

• 2 thin pancakes with lemon and 1 tsp sugar each (212 kcal)
• 1 thin pancake with a thin 16g layer of Nutella (175 kcal)

Adds up to: 387 kcal. Two plain, one indulgent, and the indulgent one is the last one. It is a better trade than three medium-indulgent pancakes, which is where most evenings end up.

The verdict

A thin British pancake is about 89 kcal. A 6-inch American pancake is about 175. A Scotch pancake is about 84.

Per gram the three are closer than they look. The difference in a real meal comes from how many you stack and what you pour on top, and on a thin British pancake the topping is usually the bigger number. A generous chocolate spread is 135 kcal on an 89 kcal pancake. A diner syrup pour is 208 kcal on a 525 kcal stack.

If you change one thing, measure the topping rather than counting the pancakes.

Pairs well with: the honey calorie breakdown, high-protein breakfasts under 500 calories, the chocolate calorie breakdown, and how many calories in a crumpet.