When Bob handed me an aerosol can of pre-made pancake batter, I’ll admit, I was dubious. Then I noticed something strange about the can. A little USDA-Certified Organic label.

Organic Pancake Batter in an aerosol can? Yep.

Sean O’Connor came up with the idea for Batter Blaster during the early 2000′s, during his time as co-owner of Thee Parkside Cafe in San Francisco.

But for O’Connor, the hardest part wasn’t coming up with the idea, it was getting others to believe in his idea.

“Try telling someone, ‘I have this idea. We’re going to put pancakes in a can,’ and not have them laugh you out of the room,” O’Connor said.

In fact, so few people believed in his idea that he ended up buying some equipment, finding a company which could mass produce his batter, and setting up the business with his buddy Nate Steck, a veteran of the food development/manufacturing business.

Batter Blaster is currently stocked at most grocery stores in the dairy section.  (Oh, and in case you were wondering- the aerosol can Batter Blaster comes in uses CO2, a more environmentally friendly alternative to the nitrous oxide used in most whipped cream aerosol cans.)

Anyway, with Bob’s urging and a hankering to spray myself a cake, I tried it myself.  I’ll admit that I’m not much of a chef, and it took me a couple of attempts to get a perfect hotcake. But I did. And sure enough, it tasted… good. Real good. The amount of batter in each can isn’t much. You won’t be able to make much more than ten decent-sized pancakes with a single can, if that. (The can claims you can make up to 28 pancakes, four inches in diameter. Other reviewers seem to have had more luck than I did, quantity-wise.) But at less than four dollars a can (you can get a three pack for 10 dollars at Costco), this product is certainly worth the money, not to mention the luxury of being able to make only one or two pancakes at a time.

Is it the be-all end-all pancake mix? No. And it certainly won’t replace mom’s hotcakes. But hey, mom’s not here.  For my money, the amount of time and energy that Batter Blaster saved me was invaluable.

So really, there’s only one question that remains unanswered:

What’s for lunch?

Resources

http://www.Batterblaster.com

http://www.smartmoney.com/smartmoneytv/?vid=29413207001

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/01/31/MN1PUKCD1.DTL

http://www.theimpulsivebuy.com/wordpress/2008/08/04/organic-batter-blaster/