We've gathered three professional chefs to blind taste test every pancake mix we could get our hands on to see which ones meet their [Music] standards. All of the pancakes have been prepared following the cooking instructions in the back of their packaging. Natural variants may occur. Betty Crocker Bisquick original pancake and baking mix. They have a nice color. They're already sugar inside. I can smell it. Love the little dip in the center. what I think of like as a waste of a pancake. There's no heat that really touches the side. It dips in slightly because of that lack of heat. It tells me that the pancake has enough strength to rise enough. I love it. What I'm looking for in a pancake is something fluffy and tender. We want a balanced flavor, not too sweet and not too bland. Neutral enough to take the maple syrup. I love a pancake that has crispy edges. You want texture in that little ring is good. You want to make sure your pancake has enough moisture in it. And if it has the acidic tang of something like buttermilk or sour cream, that's an added bonus for me. This tastes kind of flat. It's actually less sweet than than I thought. There's a slight bitterness towards the end of this. It's fluffy and it's tender, but it's a bit dry. It feels a little dense. It feels a little sticky. Really admirable rise. Height in a pancake is usually in relation to how much lemon there is and the correct balance of them. Generally, a thicker batter will rise more and a thinner batter will kind of spread out. Bisquick, maybe. Oh, bisqu. Oh, no way. It says pancake and baking mix. Two cups of the mix, 1 cup of milk, 2 tbsp of vegetable oil, and two eggs. The fact that we only add 2 tbsps of oil might go towards explaining why this feels quite uh lean to me. There's a lot of starch inside, cornstarch, flour. This is very dense. Usually in ingredient labels, ingredients are listed by the weight or volume in a descending order. The sugar and salt are towards the end. It means there's very little. So I think that kind of translates into why the pancakes taste pretty flat to me. Betty Crocker Bisquick Shake and Pour Buttermilk Pancake Mix. They look a little flat. There's holes in them. The holes are usually coming from the flour or the dry ingredients not mixed properly and dissolving enough into the wet. These are a bit thinner than the previous ones. You don't have enough fat and so then you're not getting that nice golden crispy ring on the outside. You see how there's no waste in this one? It tells me that the pancake batter was probably a bit thinner than the previous one. That little stretch and pull. I think this is going to taste a bit gummy, but let's find out. Oh. Strange texture. Very stretchy. Not fluffy enough. Not tender enough. It's way more sweet. The flour has been cut with something else. I'd be curious if there was like some kind of starches. This quick shake and pour. Oh god, what did our world come to? Yeah, that's why. Shake and pour. What a revolutionary concept. Just add water. So if you take all of these dehydrated dry ingredients and you just add water to it, it's going to taste like a sponge. Chewy and dense. The sugar and the dextrose. This is why this is more sweet. defatted soy flour. Oh, that kind of explains the the gummness a little bit. Usually soy flour is added as a tenderizer. It also makes a batter a bit more viscous and it helps to trap air a bit better. Oh yes, there's datim in there. DATM, but it's essentially like a fatty acid or an emulsifier and it's used to just bring and keep all the ingredients together in a way. It's structuring the the batter while it's cooking it. It can replace the eggs. Might as well have just added the water to this, put it out in a squeeze bottle, and then made like glue. Trader Joe's buttermilk pancake and baking mix. They seem a little dense. They don't seem fluffy, like they're springing back. You can hear the cut. It's like I'm sewing through something. It's dry. These taste much drier than the other two. I'm sorry. There's actually pancake stuck in my throat. The thing about like batters like this that you shouldn't overm mix it. If you keep mixing it and keep tinkering with it, that flour and the dry ingredients, they get stretchy. They get tough. Do you see the crumbs just from cutting it? It feels fluffy like a sponge, you know, like a dish sponge. You would need a lot of maple syrup to kind of moisten this one. It's very dry. Is is very blend. Trader Joe's. Oh, Trader Joe's. I guessed. You did me dirty. I guess you're not that good at making pancakes. I don't taste much buttermilk in this. I haven't found yet a buttermilk powder that replicates the richness and lactic tang of liquid buttermilk. Buttermilk dehydrated is really taking out all the fat and the tang of what buttermilk is supposed to do and be. Jiffy buttermilk pancake and waffle mix. The crust and the edges and the color is very nice. A little brown and caramelized. There's a faint whiff of maple for some reason. Now you're talking. Flavor is nice. Certainly balanced between salt and sugar. They feel a little lighter. They're not as dense in the middle. You can see the crumbs on my plate here, which indicates that it's reasonably dry. It's nice. These are, I think, the best out of anything I've tasted today. Oh, buttermilk pancake and waffle. The picture on the box is beautiful. The first thing that jumps out at me is it has lard in it and that's what makes it flavorful. Cornstarch is good, too. Cornstarch makes things crispy. The soy flour, but it also has wheat starch. Both tenderizing products that reduce the gluten, overall gluten content. Maltoextrin, corn syrup, plus regular sugar in seconds. So, this is very high sugar, natural and artificial flavors. They've put maple syrup in here. That's what I'm tasting in the batter, I think, is that maple flavor, which is like a sweetener, but it also tenderizes like sugar. It caramelizes and it breaks down the gluten in the flour. Palm Milling Company original pancake and waffle mix. Nice edge, crispiness. I actually like the look of these. They feel very homemade to me in a way. There's something promising about them. I have a feeling these are going to be tender but also a bit moist. This one is very nice. It's very fluffy and very tender, but it's still a bit drier than I would like. It doesn't feel as chemical. I would say it feel more fresh. There is some kind of odd after taste. Some sort of like citrus peel or lemony. Right now it's my favorite. Pearl Milling Company original pancake and waffle mix. America's favorite pancake brand. Pearl Millie. I don't know that one. Listen, I'm no one to argue with America right here. So, I see on this recipe it says to add milk. Some box mixes will ask you to reconstitute with water. Milk has a bit more fat and it has protein and it has sugars in it which help to tenderize a pancake and also help with the browning. Hungry Jack original pancake and waffle mix. This looks good. It looks fluffy. The color is nice. I can see that they have a nice even crumb. No sign of gummness. They are tender. They are moist. It's nice. I would say this one and the other one are very close. They're very tender. The syrup is soaking well enough. They taste like they might have a bit of fat in the dough. Oil is going to give it moistness and tenderness. Probably has eggs as well because it's very yellow all around. It has a nice balanced flavor. It has the crispy edges. I feel like this is something I would get at a diner. Hungry Jack. Hungry Jack. Wait, for real? Shut up. I said hungry. That's wild. It says bleach with flour, but the other one it was unriched. Wheat flour. It just has more flavor. Very nice instructions. For pancakes a bit above the rest, let your prep mix stand for 3 minutes. that helps hydrate the flowers a bit more evenly and it could also translate into a loftier rise. A perfectly serviceable pancake. And I would say if you somebody asked me now which one I would pick of the ones that I tasted so far, this is the one I would pick. Go Jack. Dolly Parton's buttermilk pancakes. They're little and perfect and very cute. They have that crispy edge. It's kind of pilling in a way. Like you know when you have a Kashmir sweater and it creates those little pills. It kind of has that same texture when I cut it. So, I think it might be a bit gummy. Like it's pulling. It's almost like stretching like pizza dough. A little tough, a little dry. It's getting like a paste in your mouth. Not very pleasant texture, I will say. I don't think the flavor is so good here. It feels really bland. There's a lack of salt in it, which makes the sweetness stand out a bit more. Bed Bath and Beyond. It's a singer. Really? Barry Manalo. Oh, Dolly Parton. I love her. Whose idea was to put Dolly's name on a pancake mix? There's dehydrated eggs and dehydrated buttermilk. So, this is a complete mix, which means you just add water. I hope you're using good quality water. From the pancakes I've tasted thus far, those that have been reconstituted with just water have proven to be gummier than the rest. I think maybe even something as little as balancing the salt and sugar a bit more would have helped a lot. It's not worth it. I'm sorry. Even if I like uh country music. Crusties light and fluffy complete buttermilk pancake mix. Eh, the color is a little light. I feel like these don't have a lot of fat in the batter. I'm would be curious to see if this is also like a mixed with water kind of situation. So, I'm working too hard to have to cut a wedge out of it. I can feel that stretchiness and chewiness, that toughness. Quite hefty. double the size I would say of some of the others that we've tasted. Smells like bleached flour. Like if you have a swimming pool, but it's made out of metal, if that makes sense. It has a chlorine and iron smell. And that's a no for me. It's puffing, but it's not airy. It can be that the batter was too thick. Oh, okay. Crusties. Complete pancake mix. Just add water. No. So, first of all, there's no eggs on that one, which explains why there's not much richness. Oil and buttermilk are towards the end of the ingredient list, which means there's very little of it compared to the rest of the ingredients. Food starch modified. Modified starch. That means it's a starch that can do its job, which is primarily thickening, without the need for any heat. It'll activate just by the action of friction or shearing. the baking soda might be trapped inside and can't really go out because there's so much starch that it can't really does his work and that's why I think it's so thin and dense. Annie's organic classic pancake and waffle mix. I think first glance flat didn't raise at all indicates to me that the batter might be a bit thinner than some of the previous ones. It could also be a function of the leavening makeup. Baking powder generally makes things go up where baking soda spreads rather than springs up as much. It looks dry. Something tastes like artificial or off. No flavor. Very bland. Not fluffy, not tender. I think it's maybe the leavenning on it. It didn't work that well. And they do have a little crispy edge, which is good, but I don't know. The flavor is not good. Oh, Annie's baking powder and they have baking soda. When you combine too much lemon together, it's either going to overpuff or not doing anything. You can see it puffing in the pan. Oh, I'm gonna have nice and fluffy pancakes. And then you put it up and then Oh, it says you can make it vegan and swap an egg for a third of a cup of applesauce. Apples are high in pectin. And applesauce has this thickness and viscosity that can act like eggs and allow air to be trapped within it, which makes it a wonderful substitute. And this is the one with vegan is applesauce. And now all of a sudden I could tell immediately when I cut this that this is going to be better. The one with the applesauce looks fluffier. I can taste the applesauce in it. It still blend. The applesauce bring a better taste. The texture of the vegan version is much better than this one. The eggs added too much lemoning. This is why I think it got flattened. I think the baking powder and the baking soda work very well without the eggs. Stonewall Kitchen Farmhouse pancake and waffle mix. These look flat, kind of like a crepe, no crispy edge. These are different. They have like a bumpy kind of browning. When the batter hits the griddle, they're not rising properly. Either not enough leavenning agents in the batter or too heavy other ingredients in it. This smells like waffles that you get at a selfservice hotel breakfast setup. dry, a little bit of crispiness, a pronounced bitterness to this. It feels like this baking soda that hasn't been balanced by enough acidic ingredients and has this metallic kind of taste. Smells like vanilla, tastes like licking a pole. Sarah Betts at Stonewall Kitchen Farmhouse pancake and waffle mix. Boy, is that bad. Company classic. Wow, what a posh little name for not very great pancakes. enriched wheat flour, niacin, reduced iron, thamin, monotrate, riboplavin. So that's all nutrients added back in because it's bleached flour. Multi barley extract is like molasses. It's very sweet. And on top of that, you still have regular sugar and also artificial flavor. And here it says mix with whole milk or buttermilk. And both of those ingredients are kind of different. Buttermilk would have neutralized the baking soda in this mix, but if this was made with milk, I fear there wasn't enough acid to neutralize the baking soda, and that's coming out in this metallic kind of iron pole sort of taste. Birch Benders organic classic pancake and waffle mix. These look amateur, like my four-year-old grandson could have done these. Very chubby pancakes. They're tough and gluey and really kind of almost raw in the middle even though I know they're cooked. It has almost like a yeasted dough pull. I'm expecting this to be a little bit chewy and tough. It's a shame about the texture because actually they taste quite good. There's a nice level of sweetness, a decent amount of salt. Without any toppings, it's hard to chew. Yeah. I pull that out and you could see it's like stretching. Add in flour could make an elastic pancake. Too much starch in the mix or in the batter. I wonder if it's a slightly leaner mix that doesn't have too much fat, so then it's activating a lot of the gluten in it. Birch benders. That's a cute name. Organic tapioca flour. Okay. The tapioca starch making it very stretchy and very gluey. Like tapioca has this sort of elasticity. It's hard to use. I would say when you let let the batter sit too long, the tapioca fall at the bottom. So, this is something that you have constantly need to mix. Wow. Okay. No fat, no eggs, no dairy. That's all that needs to be said. We're done here. Bob's Redm Mill organic multigrain pancake and waffle mix. I feel like we're in the organic whole wheat section of this segment. I wonder if it's like a seven grain, vegetarian, vegan, no gluten, something like that. It's very dense, but there are some darker brown speckles and maybe even some yellow. So, I think there's some kind of grain in this. God help me if it's quinoa. You can see that it's very dry by this zero um lemoning. This is more dense. whole grains because of the very nature of their makeup that is they still have their husks and all of that is ground down. They are a lot more heavier. They're not as starchy as like their white flour counterparts. It's good for health, good for digestion. It's good for protein, but it doesn't taste that good. They need a little bit more liquid usually. They might need a little bit more leavenvening. And counter to your instinct, whole wheat products can sometimes benefit from being mixed a lot more because you need actually gluten to develop. Oh yeah, Bob's Red Mill. Okay. Multi-grain. You know what? I actually love Bob's Red Mill. Maybe with just whole wheat flour, it might work, but with the combination of the everything, it's not working. Those flowers tend to want to be dense. If I had to make this at home, I would probably use half a cup of this mix and half a cup of allpurpose flour. Good deed's pancake plus keto friendly baking mix. Wow, very yellow. A lot of eggs, maybe. Looks like a nomel. I love the coloring on them. Okay, this is gluten-free. As soon as you start to do anything with non-gluten flour, everything falls apart. Wow. Really bad. I thought it was going to be really good. Very bland. There's no gluten in it. I could tell the texture as soon as I cut it, I knew it crumbled. And there is no pull or chew, which also leads me to believe that there's no gluten. Like at that, it's like really, really dry and crumbly and granular. I feel like there's almond flour in here. I got some kind of grittiness um to the tooth. There we go. Good. There's a lot going on with the branding. Made with almond flour. Mix 24 pancakes. No sugar, alcohols, or stevia. That's a good call. Good deeds. Still sweet pancake plus low carb baking mix. One. This is a lot of stuff. I do like the almond flour in this. I do taste it now. It's coming back to me. The thing about using almond flour is it doesn't absorb moisture like a regular kind of flour. There's a lot of eggs in here. So, for one cup of the mix, it calls for three eggs. In some of the previous ones, it was one egg usually at most. That's why it's so yellow and tastes like frittata. It tastes like these ingredients. And good job, I guess, in making a mix that tastes exactly like your ingredients. Arrowhead Mills organic gluten-free pancake and waffle mix. These are stunning. Lovely pale golden. Oh, wow. Weirdly very acidic. There's a really bad aftertaste. Maybe some sort of a additive or preservative in the flour. First thing that I that that comes to me is the sugar right away. It's very sweet. A little bit of sandyiness and texture in the batter, like a grain. It almost has the texture of cornbread. I would think it's also either a gluten-free or a certain kind of flour. Jify Pop. Oh, Arrowhead. I know them. Arrowhead Mills. Organic gluten-free. It's not the worst, honestly. Rice flour. That's the grit. organic tapioca flour that mimics some of the properties of gluten because it's a bit stretchy. All of that type of flowers, it's not the same size of the grain. So, this is why when you're eating it, you can feel it. Zanthin gum. Almost all gluten-free recipes will contain some amount of zanthan gum. It's kind of like pectin they use in jams and jellies to kind of thicken things. It adds a sort of extensibility and viscosity to the mixture and it can trap air in the same way that egg whites can. This is why you can do this, you know, otherwise you would break like a piece of dry bread, you know. Kodiak power cakes, flapjack and waffle mix. Nice crispy ring. It's probably whole grain flour or seven grain flour or something like that cuz it's very brown. It tastes very raw. It's wet almost like it's fully cooked. It's not raw. There's nothing oozing out on the middle of the pancake, but it's still gummy like you can ball it up essentially. What makes a pancake gummy is putting too many wet ingredients in it or not putting your ingredients in at the correct time. You want to do all your dry first, then you want to fold in or incorporate your wet. Oh, Kodiak 100% whole grains, power cakes, flapjack, and waffle mix. I love when a pancake is called the flapjack. I have no idea what the difference is, but I feel like you need to be wearing a flannel jacket and you're somewhere in upstate New York. Whey protein concentrate as well. Okay. I mean, it's high protein because they added a bunch of protein powder. That doesn't feel very groundbreaking to me. There's a lot of protein inside. So, you're going to eat like one, two pancakes. is going to fill it up very fast. Oat flour was an interesting one that I didn't guess, but it makes a lot of sense. It behaves in many ways like traditional flour. It's like soft. It has a nice balance of like starch, fat, and protein. Some people would not like it because it's a specific taste, but you for sure have way more flavor, I would say, inside a whole grain than on a regular flour. Cracker Barrel, buttermilk baking, and pancake mix. These look really nice. They look beautiful. They have like lots of frilly edges, a little defined waist. I feel like the batter was calibrated just right. Air is bubbly. The bubbles are almost fossilized in there, which really that's what a pancake is. I think these are good. Have a little bit of saltiness, which I like. It's not too sweet. The flavor. I think it's well balanced. These are made with bleached flour. The process of bleaching the flour changes its structure in a way that it makes for a much softer, more tender end result. Moist enough, fluffy enough, the color is nice, flavors are here. Out of all of the things I've tasted today, these are the least offensive. This is a pancake that I would be very happy to eat at a diner. I hope. No. No. Cracker Barrel. Cracker Barrel. Bubbies. Oh, it is Cracker Barrel. Palm and soybean oil. Sorbic acid. aluminum phosphate. I'm sure that's really good for you. Palm oil has its own controversies attached to it. Uh it's not really sustainably harvested, but it is used a lot in food businesses and also cosmetics just because it's stable fat. For something commercial, I'm not surprised by any of the ingredients. There you have it. Now, let's see which pancakes our chefs like the most and the least. My favorite is the Jify. I think it had the most flavor, the best texture, the least amount of additives that would make it seem artificial. My favorite pancakes today were permilling with the Cracker Barrel, was like very in the same scale, very fluffy, very moist, and flavorful. They were all terrible, mind you. I'm sorry to be that person. I think Hungry Jack to me was the closest to a homemade version. It had a nice balance of like sweet and salty. It felt neutral enough to be able to take maple syrup and butter. It was fluffy without being dry and cottony. My least favorite on the pancakes were the good D's. They were gluten-free, flavorfree. The one made with almond flour and lots of eggs. They were crumbly and had a weird aftertaste. It was too eggy. It was gritty and not at all what I expected from a pancake. My least favorite was bred meal. There was too many flowers added in inside. The flavor were not here and it was not fluffy at all. This is a big feat trying 16 pancakes in in I don't know how many hours. If you are making pancakes from a box mix, you don't have to be beholden to the instructions on the back of the box. You could add richer ingredients like milk or eggs or sour cream and you could cook it in a little bit of fat to have a much more flavorful uh end result. Don't get tricked by what you can buy. If you can make your own, go for it. The best ones are the ones that are made from scratch. I can't believe I raw dog these pancakes without maple syrup.