Stock up on flour and eggs and grab the frying pan - it's Pancake Day! To celebrate we've put together a list of ten fun pancake facts.

1. The three days before the beginning of Lent are known as Shrovetide. Quinquagesima Sunday (Shrove Sunday), the 50th day before Easter, then Collop Monday (Shrove Monday), which was named after the traditional dish of the day - collops of bacon served with eggs, the bacon also providing the fat for the following day, and then Shrove Tuesday, where all the fats and cream had to be used up before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. It was a day of indulgence, before the abstinence of Lent.

2. The name Shrove comes from the old word shrive' that means to confess'. On Shrove Tuesday, people would confess their sins so they had forgiveness before Lent.

3. In France, Pancake Day is known as Mardi Gras, meaning Fat Tuesday 4. Shrove Tuesday is known as Sprengidagur or Bursting Day in Iceland and is celebrated by eating salted meat and peas until you are nearly ready to burst.

5. The most famous pancake race takes place in Olney, Buckinghamshire. Legend has it that in 1445 an Olney woman heard the shriving bell while she was making pancakes and ran to the church in her apron, still holding her frying pan.

6. The world's biggest pancake was cooked in Rochdale in 1994. It measured 15m in diameter, weighed three tonnes and contained a diet-busting two million calories.

7. The record for the most amount of pancake tosses in Britain was 349 in two minutes. See if you can beat that today!

8. The longest pancake race in the shortest time was held in Melbourne, Australia in 1995. Jan Stickland covered 384m in 59.5 seconds.

9. In France it is customary to touch the handle of the frying pain and make a wish while the pancake is flipped. They do this while holding a coin in the other hand.

10. Mike Cuzzacrea, aka The Pancake Man, flipped a pancake continuously in a frying pan as he completed the Casino Niagara International Marathon (Buffalo, New York, USA - Niagara Falls, Canadian side) in a time of 3 hr 2 min 27 sec on 24 October 1999.