The Pancake of the Month Club from Gourmet Food Clubs:
A Breakfast Lover's Review
I'm sure you've already heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
Load up on nutrients in the morning and your day is bound to be brighter. But I suppose you can have a light breakfast if you want. Light and fluffy, that is.
Gourmet Food Club's Pancake of the Month Club surprised me this month with a sample shipment of not one but two gourmet pancake mixes: Bacon Freak Maple Bacon Pancake Mix and Baby Bubba Gourmet Cinnamon and Raisin Pancake Mix. Because I love few things more than golden, fluffy flap jacks, I just went ahead and decided to make both mixes at the same time. This taught me 2 very important lessons.
- Pacing yourself is overrated.
- The only thing better than a short stack? A tall stack.
Before I break down this review into flavors, let me say something in defense of the pancake breakfast. Is any other breakfast item this fun to eat? Eggs are great, but they're a grown-up food. The word "omelet" alone sucks the fun right out of my morning. Relax egg-lovers, I don't mean to ruffle your feathers. We pancake people won't mind sitting at the kid's table while you read the newspaper in peace.
In the category of fun morning foods, waffles pose the only real threat to my precious pancakes. But as I found out, the Pancake Club's mixes also work great in a waffle iron! And I didn't stop there. In the weeks I had these mixes in my pantry, I tried them with syrup, butter, hot fudge, and a whipped cream smiley face, then in silver-dollars, Belgian waffles, pancake puffs, and chicken 'n waffles.
Now as promised, lets talk flavors.
February's Pancake Mixes of the Month
Flavor One: Bacon Freak Maple Bacon Pancake Mix
I already know what you're thinking. Whose idea was it to put bacon in the batter? And why didn't you think of it first?
This genius concoction has the potential to skew a little salty for devoted pancake lovers. It's a tricky business messing with that classic buttermilk recipe. To make things more difficult, they plan to incorporate the world's favorite savory breakfast item? Let's just say these pancake stakes are unbelievably high.
Thankfully, this mix nailed the crucial sweet/salty ratio. With the brown-sugary maple flavor right into the batter, the salty bacon taste balances out. Though make no mistake, these pancakes still merit the added butter-syrup treatment. More salty + more sweet = more scrumptious. For that matter, they might even go well with some strips of bacon. Baconfreak would probably be a good place to start looking for that...
Flavor Two: Baby Bubba Gourmet Cinnamon and Raisin
When I see cinnamon raisin pancakes on a breakfast menu, I''m reminded of a country breakfast. I imagine the red and white checkered tablecloth, the jar of homemade apple butter, and maybe a cuckoo clock mounted on some French doors.
Paints a beautiful picture, but I never actually buy them. There's always a flashier pancake flavor standing in my way, like strawberry, chocolate, and apparently now bacon. That's a raisin's luck in life. We know them, we love them, and we take the poor dried up little cuties for granted. Who in their right mind eats an oatmeal raisin cookie if a chocolate chip cookie is present? Still, it feels good to have options.
Anyway, The Pancake Club finally strong-armed me into eating some raisins. And I am very thankful it did.
More so than a flavor-profile, this is really my way of telling raisins I owe them an apology. If it wasn't for the Pancake Club, raisins would have remained in my imaginary Bed and Breakfast forever. Like a low-budget, breakfast-themed sequel to The Shining. Which would be an even bigger mistake since the cinnamon-raisin mix makes one darn delicious pancake.. My advice, it's even better as waffles! I'm sorry raisins, but it's better late than never.
...
With my remaining supply of batter, I've designed a plan that should maximize my fluffy-food consumption for the next few weeks. I'll have pancakes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then for dessert: waffles a la mode! Rather than judge my above-average sugar-intake, develop your own strategy. Or if you prefer, send Gourmet Food Club's Pancake of the Month Club to someone whose inner child is growing hungry.
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