1 week Ago By [email protected] (Jessica Fleming-Montoya)
Pancakes are the perfect weekend breakfast. They're relatively quick to make and they feel a bit more decadent than the usual cereal and taste. What's more, you can dress them up in so many ways, adding chocolate chips, piling them with fruit, or adding a delicious dollop of vanilla whipped cream .
To make things even better, you can make a classic stack of pancakes using simple store-bought mixes that take half the work out of the process. In fact, usually, all you have to do is add either water or milk. The only catch is that there are tons of different pancake mix brands out there and not all are created equal.
Daily Meal taste-tested 12 different store-bought pancake mixes and while there were plenty of good options to choose from, there's one that you definitely want to avoid. The mix in question is the Pillsbury Funfetti Mix . Although the colorful sprinkles make it look fun, the texture of both the mix and the pancake itself is decidedly lacking.
Plus, the aroma isn't appealing. The funfetti pancakes' texture isn't quite right The main issue lies in the texture both of the batter and the pancakes themselves. Starting with the batter, if you follow the package's directions to a tee, you'll wind up with a watery mixture.
When your mixture is too watery, it'll lead to thin pancakes without that signature fluffy texture. You can correct this by adding a bit more dry mix or reducing the amount of water, but it'll be a case of trial and error and you may not always have extra batter to add. Worse yet, once you add the batter to the pan, you'll notice it doesn't create air bubbles like it should when it's ready to be flipped.
Not only can this lead to burning on one side if you're not careful, but when you do flip it, you'll wind up with a pancake that has an oddly shiny exterior, and, once again, a lack of fluff. In fact, the finished pancake has a noticeably cake-like texture and a dense consistency. The aroma and flavor is off, too The first reason to avoid this mix is that when you initially open the packet, you'll be greeted by a waft of sickly sweetness.
It's not a scent that gets you thinking of buttery pancakes — instead, it's more reminiscent of sugary cupcakes. That's not exactly the flavor you're going for and can be a bit off-putting for the unprepared. Once your pancakes are prepared, that sickly scent unfortunately carries over to the taste, too.
Since around 80 to 90% of your sense of taste is affected by scent, this isn't quite so surprising. This breakfast item winds up with an artificially sweet taste that isn't what you want for your breakfast. Next time you head to the store to pick up a packet of pancake mix, while there are plenty of good options to choose from, you might be better off avoiding Pillsbury's Funfetti variety.
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