When it comes to pancakes, I have always been pretty darn fortunate. My dad worked as a short order cook at the International House of Pancakes during his early twenties and because of that experience, he took it on himself to build a better pancake than the one offered at IHOP. He spent years devising his own dry batter mix, testing and tweaking the proportions in order to create a pancake that balanced fluffiness with whole grains, inner crumb with outer browning. For years, his pancake mix was in such demand that he would mix up huge batches of it, as gifts for friends and family during the holidays.

The only problem with his pancake batter is that demanded a lot of time to prepare. If we didn't happen to have a batch of the mix on hand, breakfast could take up to an hour to go from conception to execution. Even when there's some mix tucked away in the fridge (and it has to be refrigerated because it contains wheat germ, which goes rancid quickly), it's not an instant breakfast.

However, there are some other fathers out there who have created a line of pancake and waffle mixes designed to satisfy this need for a delicious, easy to prepare breakfast. Daddy Cakes come in nine different flavors and many of the mixes are prepared so that all you have to do is add water and a little bit of oil and you are ready to cook.


As a pancake expert (you can't have eaten as many pancakes as I have without acquiring delusions of breakfast grandeur), I found these mixes to be quite good. I discovered that I preferred them when mixed with milk instead of water and an egg, but even when I followed instructions and simply added water, they were quite taste. My favorite is the Better Batter Buttermilk, it cooks up into a very tender and fluffy cake. I wasn't fond of the Bountiful Buckwheat Buttermilk, it had an artificial sweetness that turned me off (that one made me sad, because I wanted to embrace the whole grains). Also delicious were the Sinful Cinnamon and the Glamorous Gingerbread.

One thing I noticed about these batters is that they worked better as pancakes than as waffles. I don't know if it has something to do with the structure of the batter, but they couldn't quite hold up against the weight of the waffle iron.

If you're looking for a handy pancake mix to keep tucked in your cupboard or take with you on vacation, consider ordering up a couple bags of Daddy Cakes.