Food Technology FTW

[beetiger]

So, some of you may remember that I was all psyched up about the launch of Batter Blaster, but couldn't get it locally. So when I found out the Stu Leonard's grocery chain was carrying it, I had to drag the little guy out to Yonkers to get some. (Now granted, it's a grocery store with fresh cider donuts and animatronics and a little display with live farm animals, and my son likes grocery shopping, so it wasn't a huge hardship.)

It's basically organic pancake batter in a whipped cream canister. I'm a bit dubious about one batch of pancake batter using a whole high tech container, but they're at least not using CFCs and the container is supposedly recyclable steel. It's got the usual incorrectly rounded product labeling that small organic vendors often have, which bugs me professionally. (9 servings, makes total of 28 pancakes? I guess that extra one is the one we mess up and toss out when no one is looking before serving.) The ingredient line's relatively clean, though not quite the "eggs, flour, baking soda, salt" level that's best for the organic consumer. It contains wheat, eggs, and soy, but no milk.

The product works pretty well. Shaking's really important, as the batter definitely settles in the can. Much as I kind of wanted a molecular gastronomy-style batter foam to come out of the can, making it possible to make tall cylindrical pancakes, what actually came out was a normal if slightly thinnish batter with good aeration that made a nice, fluffy, completely serviceable fresh pancake. The batter spreads a decent amount before cooking firms it up, which makes for really lovely round pancakes if you like that, and also for great silver dollar size pancakes, nice and even. It's possible to draw a little with the nozzle -- I made a recognizable letter "R" pancake -- but my pancake-over-pancake smiley face method failed. If you want to write your name in pancake you'll need a really big griddle.

Rhys says these pancakes are good and he would ask for them for breakfast.

If you were going to make a batch of pancakes and use this product all at once, it's pretty silly. It's significantly more expensive than making from scratch, even with organic ingredients. But the stuff keeps in the fridge for months, and requires only a rinse of the nozzle so it doesn't clog. If you need to make a pancake or two at a time, for a toddler or a single person who likes a cooked breakfast, it's awesome. For the mess of one extra pan and about 5 minutes of your time more than using the microwave, you have a fresh, hot pancake instead of a reheated frozen one. They're tastier than the frozen organic waffles that I've had, and pancake for pancake, I'm pretty sure less expensive, as I think this can makes about as much as 3 packages of frozen organic pancakes.

I really thought at first that I'd see this as purely a novelty product, and it mostly is one. But it's actually decent tasting, and I think it does have a reason for being beyond "ooh, weird!" I'm getting into a phase where I'm a fan of small-batching right now, and this fits right in with that.

I'm not a big breakfast eater, so I don't know if I'd travel downcounty again to get more, but we'll definitely use the rest of the can, and I'd pick it up if I came across it in my regular shopping. Rumor has it some Costcos are now carrying it in three-packs. I hope the Batter Blaster guys have commercial success with this. It's nice to see a little company actually execute an innovative idea that works.

Comments

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I want to try that.

[rowyn]

Now I'm hungry for pancakes. :9