Convenience food

[davidn]

No, your eyes are not deceiving you - that thing in our fridge is pancake batter in a spray can (and not, as the name might suggest, a secret superweapon from Bugsy Malone). I saw this tragedy of nature in the dairy section of our local supermarket and picked it up largely in disbelief, but seeing no obviously fatal ingredients listed on the outside, something then possessed us to buy it and try it out.


According to the instructions on the back, all you have to do is shake it a bit, then hold it upside down over a skillet (frying pan) or waffle iron (waffle iron) and push the end to one side to slowly expel the glutinous contents - much like compressed whipped cream. It looks fairly nasty initially, but after it's come out of the can and is slowly spreading into a sort of beige mass, it just looks (almost disappointingly so) like normal batter to me.



Certainly it sticks to the ceiling a bit, but what doesn't? We tried it out in the manufacture of waffles (American-type, no potatoes) and pancakes (bilingual), and it really worked very well. At the very least the claim of it being perfectly organic with no radioactive ingredients seems to be true enough, because it doesn't cause you to grow extra ears out of your nose when you eat it. The convenience of it, in fact, is very nice, in that you can just make one or two things at a time, wash it off and then put it back in the fridge, without having to cook the whole lot at once, then store them under clingfilm and watch them gradually rot. The only remaining problem is that I just can't escape how inexplicably wrong it also feels - but you do want pancakes now, don't you?

Comments

[zephyr-pie.livejournal.com]

Leave it to us Americans to sell organic batter in a spray can.

On the plus side, you could make some pretty sweet pancakes with that! It reminds me of something I saw on an Emeril clip in a supermarket:

"Let's make breakfast F-U-N again!"
*spells out "F U N" in pancake batter.

Enjoy! Post pictures if you make anything extraordinary.

[kjorteo]

You're just scared because it represents the obvious slippery slope toward Easy Cheese.

[davidn]

And I think that's a legitimate fear! I saw that stuff in a supermarket soon after moving to Boston, actually, and was horrified that it really existed. (I'd also seen it before on a British programme called Room 101 - I don't think I need to describe it beyond the title.)

[starfishchris.livejournal.com]

I was really, really hoping it was 'orgasmic' batter blaster.

[davidn]

You know that bit at the end I said about "wanting pancakes now"? You've just cured that for the next hundred years.

[kjorteo]

:D

[jenny0.livejournal.com]

I want a waffle iron so bad. Yum.

Also, I don't think "pancake" is bilingual, because every Pancake Day I was in St Andrews I expected nice, fluffy, American-style pancakes but was presented with something I would have called crepes instead.

[davidn]

I know that the (now sadly gone) most literally-named cafe in the world, The Eating Place, had the kind of pancakes that you're thinking of, though I know that the word can be used for both in Britain. Though my mum's style of pancakes (which look much like the one in the picture above) are apparently dropped scones according to the rest of the country.

[jenny0.livejournal.com]

And what makes it worse is that I have a completely different concept of dropped scones, as well (that's what I call it when I have enough energy/attention span to make the dough, but not enough to roll it out and cut it into triangles. Same goes for cookies and biscuits).

[starfishchris.livejournal.com]

My concept of dropped scones involves crumbs everywhere...

[davidn]

Here we come to another problem, in that scones for me aren't triangular, and more resemble what the Americans would then call biscuits.

Dropped scone-pancakes: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cumbria/content/images/2007/07/24/dropped_scones203x152.jpg

Scone-biscuits: http://www.westonmilling.com/images/scone%20photo.jpg

[jenny0.livejournal.com]

Suspenders! Braces! Argh!

[kibet.livejournal.com]

I always thought that they were called drop scones rather than dropped scones.

[kibet.livejournal.com]

The waffle looks pretty nice, I may get the prepackaged kind on way home. Did it skoosh out or pour out as the pic makes it look like it is pouring out.

Top picture on the far left, is that Bru? or is it iced tea?

[davidn]

It was sort of a combination between the two. It... flows out as it decompresses.

Grape juice, I think, at that point. I could never stand IRN-BRU.