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Get the flour, eggs and sugar stocked up - Pancake Day is just around the corner.

Shrove Tuesday is the day pancakes and chocolate spread becomes an acceptable evening meal, and thousands of pancakes end up on ceilings and floors around the country, as we all remember the hard way that we can't flip them in the pan.

Here's everything you need to know about Shrove Tuesday.

When is Pancake Day?

This year, Pancake Day falls on Tuesday 17 February 2015.

So you've got the best part of two weeks to get your ingredients together - and figure out what you're going to give up for Lent this year.

Why does the date change every year?

Shrove Tuesday must always fall 47 days before Easter Sunday.

Traditionally, Shrove Tuesday is the day that Christians would confess all of their sins, before Lent commences the next day, on Ash Wednesday.

So... how did pancakes get involved?

Pancakes became an convenient way of getting rid of "rich foods" such as flour, eggs and sugar before the 40-day feasting season of Lent began.

Going back even further, before the Christian era, Pancake Day was originally a pagan festival. The Slavs believed that the changing of the seasons was the struggle between Jarilo, the god of springtime and vegetations, and the evil spirits of cold and darkness.

In order to help Jarilo fight off the evil winter spirits and bring in the spring time, they made and ate pancakes, which were supposed to symbolise the sun.

They believed that by eating pancakes, they would inherit the power, light and warmth of the sun.

So now you know.