Princess Kate Celebrates Mardi Gras by Making Pancakes with Nursing Home Residents

Princess Kate went from the height of glamour at the 2023 BAFTA Awards on Sunday to rolling up her sleeves and getting messy in the kitchen.

The Princess of Wales followed her appearance at the award show alongside her husband Prince William with a solo trip to the Oxford House Nursing Home in Slough in Berkshire, England on Tuesday. Once there, the royal met with both staff and residents to learn how the care center is prioritizing the needs of its patients. As it was Mardi Gras, also known as Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Day in the UK, Kate also joined some of the nursing home residents in cooking up a stack. However, her pancake-flipping skills proved to be a little bit rusty as her first attempt got stuck to her frying pan and she had to use a spatula to scrape it off before she could flip it over. “I’m sorry,” the princess told her fellow chefs with a laugh in a video shared on Twitter by The Sun‘s Matt Wilkinson. “I haven’t done you justice,” she added.

While she may have struggled with her flip technique, the royal reassured Sheila, one of the residents there, that pancakes have become a signature part of her family’s holiday celebrations. “I either get pancakes stuck on the floor or on the ceiling, but the children are very well and we will be making our own pancakes this evening with the children,” she said, according to a tweet from Isabella Perrin from the Bucks Free Press. While Kate may have downplayed her prowess in the kitchen, in the past Prince William has raved that his wife is a “very good” cook. During a visit to the Together as One charity in January, the royal joined a cooking class teaching young people how to make easy, nutritious meals that won’t break their household budget. During the lesson, the royal was asked about his culinary expertise, to which he replied, “I do a bit of cooking, not much though. Catherine’s very good though.” However, he does have one speciality. “I do a mean steak,” he said, but, “My sauces come out quite dry or lumpy—I’ve got to work on those!”

The royal couple also previously revealed that they spent much of their time in quarantine doing some baking with their three children, Prince George, Princess Charlotte, and Prince Louis. During a stop at family-owned bakery Smiths The Bakers in King’s Lynn in June 2020, the Prince of Wales revealed, “The children have been attacking the kitchen and it’s just been an explosion of flour and chocolate everywhere.” And it’s not just his three children who were using all that time indoors to hone their skills. William admitted that he’s “done a little bit of baking” as well, and “Catherine’s been doing quite a bit of baking.” He concluded that with all the baked goods being consumed in their home, he was worried “about the waistline of the nation.”

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