With Pancake Day on the horizon, one woman has decided to shelve her usual home made mix and instead buy them pre-made.
Emily Collis of Birmingham Live decided to test out a range of pre-made pancakes from five supermarket giants as she felt that she could never make the perfect homemade discs. For her, they either came out stodgy and undercooked or dry and paper thin.
While she initially believed that the readymade version couldn't quite match up to homemade, her mind was changed after testing a selection from Aldi, Asda, M&S, Tesco and Morrisons to see which tasted best. While she said they all tasted good, two were found to be better than ones made from scratch.
Each pack ranged in price and required different cooking instructions, with some suitable for the oven while others recommended using a frying pan. Some could even be microwaved, but Emily decided to give that a miss as it was a "step too far".
Readymade pancakes take just a couple of minutes to heat up on the pan and they leave less mess behind. So if you're looking for a fuss free pancake day on February 21, read below to see what Emily had to say about each type of cake.
Tesco
Weirdly, less than a week before Pancake Day, my local Tesco didn't have any of its own-range pancakes in stock, but they did have some from a brand called Abra Ca Debora. They were £2.30 for a pack of six.
On closer inspection, these ones looked a little smaller than the others. We shallow-fried ours for 60 seconds on each side and they turned a lovely, golden brown.
These ones, like Morrisons' and M&S's, can be found in the fridge section, so I thought they might taste fresher. But without any lemon or sugar, we found the branded ones a little bland. The texture, too, was a bit wet. They weren't bad, but I couldn't help thinking I could have made better myself.
Aldi
Surprisingly, Aldi's pancakes weren't the cheapest of the bunch, but still a modest £1.85 for a pack of eight. The cooking instructions advised frying each pancake in a nob of butter, which you'd assume would make them taste even better.
But even before we'd tucked in, I could see my pancake was greasy - and I'd only used the tiniest amount of butter. The texture was a bit slimy and dense and we both agreed we couldn't have eaten a second one.
Morrisons
Morrisons' pancakes seemed to be a little thicker than the first two. We shallow-fried ours in a little oil for two minutes, flipping halfway. They smelled incredible.
If I'd made these myself, I'd be chuffed. They tasted better than any pancakes I've ever made - the perfect balance of stodgy and fluffy. A little pricier at £1.99 for a pack of six, but worth every penny.
Asda
Asda's pancakes were the cheapest of the lot at £1.50 for eight. It felt weird putting pancakes in the oven, but we did as the packet told us, covering them in foil and leaving them in for six minutes.
When they came out, they looked thin and dark in colour. Eating these straight after the Morrisons ones, they didn't taste as fresh, but rather dry and a bit chewy. They weren't awful, but I wouldn't buy them again in a hurry.
M&S
M&S's were the most expensive at £2.50 for a pack of six. After Asda's, I was reluctant to heat them in the oven but thankfully, the result was very different.
They didn't dry out like Asda's and actually tasted the same, if not better, than homemade. They were slightly sweeter and the texture was moist but still light. A strong contender from M&S.
So which pancakes were best?
Overall, I was really impressed by how much I liked the taste of pre-packaged pancakes. None of them were bad, but I don't think it was a coincidence that our two favourites - M&S and Morrisons - were both from the fridge. They just tasted fresher than the rest.
Our favourite overall had to be Morrisons'. The flavour and the texture were spot on and being able to heat them up in the pan meant that we still had all the fun of flipping pancakes - without the fuss or the mess.
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