Pancakes Play-Along

Pancake premixes are awesome, and by the term “premix” I don’t mean the kind that you see on the supermarket shelves. First of all, they’re a rip-off (last I checked, Coles sold them for $3 about 1-cup measure of premix); secondly, this premix is dead easy to put together; thirdly, if you look closely at the label of commercially-sold premixes, you’ll find that the ingredients are pretty dubious, not to mention unnecessary.

So over the weekend I surfed up pancake premixes and stumbled upon Nigella’s recipe on the net and realised that perhaps my pancake-craving days can finally come to an end. The ingredients are common to everyone’s pantry so there’s really no reason why anyone would want to spend their dosh on the plastic stuff.

Which would you prefer?

Commercially-sold pancake premix

A bottle of Green’s Original Pancake Premix which contains:

Wheat flour, sugar, wheat starch, non fat milk solids, whole egg powder, maltodextrin, baking powder, mineral salt (341), thickener (1422), salt

To assemble: Add water, shake, pour, cook.

OR

Nigella’s Pancake Premix (makes about 3 cups of premix)

• 300g plain flour
• 30g caster sugar
• 25g baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

To assemble:
1 cup premix + 1 cup milk + 1 egg + 1 tablespoon melted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla essence (optional)

Mix everything very lightly to ensure that the big lumps are broken up but it doesn’t matter if you have a lumpy batter because the smaller lumps will break up during the cooking stage; if you overmix it you’ll end up getting rubbery cakes instead.

Fry on a skillet and VOILA!

1 cup of premix yields approximately 4-5 pancakes.

Anyway, I had pancakes for breakfast this morning, all ready in less than 5 minutes. I even did my makeup in between assembling, cooking and eating them, and was out the door in a flash. Whoosh!