I can't flip things over with a spatula. Never could, never will be able to do this! But I don't need to worry about it any more. Pancakes made by this lady are now even edged and not folded in half. I am now the proud owner of The Perfect Pancake. Yes, I succumbed to clever advertising, along with an online coupon that was hard to resist. Let me tell you about it.

My daughter wants everything she sees on television. If it comes with an 800 number plus shipping and handling and a BUT WAIT in the message, she's all over it. Mom, mom, mom, did you see? Did you see? You get all this, plus more!

I had been seeing The Perfect Pancake commercial for around a year now and thought the $19.99 plus shipping was a little steep. My daughter considers pancakes a special treat. This was something that it looked like she could use to help Daddy make pancakes. I would wait until it hit the retail market, watch for a sale and save some cash was my intent. Something even better came up. An online coupon of $20 off any purchase came up at a website and I purchased Perfect Pancake for $7.35 total with shipping. For that price it really doesn't matter if it's perfect in all ways or not to me. And while I like it, it's not perfect. I'll explain.

The Perfect Pancake Maker comes with a hinged non-stick griddle about as big around as a restaurant sized pancake. Along with this you get cooking ringed shaped like a heart, a pancake batter dispenser and a small directions/cookbook flier.

The griddle consist of a slightly bowled thicker bottom side and a flat edged thinner side, connected by a hinge and having two handles that are heat resistant. The cooking surface is Teflon coated so that you need no oil for cooking. It's a little heavy for the younger cook in training, but a little lighter than what the experienced cook expects from cookware. It washes easily in hit soapy water.

The heart shaped ring. Hmm.. well, I don't like it. It has a teeny little wooden grip connecting it to the ring with a metal bar. The key words here are teeny little. To hold the heat resistant handle and get the pancake out of the ring without burning yourself is a chore. The directions recommend greasing the ring before using it, which I did. But I still had to talk the pancake into coming out of the ring, nipping my finger with the edge of the hot metal. The ring doesn't sit flat on the griddle, causing a little batter to come out under the bottom, creating a less than perfect heart. We won't be using this piece again, if I can avoid it.

The batter dispenser works like a charm. Once you have the batter mixed, you pour it into the dispenser for measuring out just the right amount of batter with no drips. That's what the ad tells you in short, and it's true. This piece is a plastic funnel shaped cup that holds between 2 and 3 cups of batter. It has a handle with plunger that you press down causing the bottom of the funnel to open up and the batter to come out at a nice speed into the pan. The only fault I could find in this is clean up. I rinsed mine out immediately after using it. I imagine it could be a bear to clean if you were to let batter dry on or in it, due to it's shape.

The direction/cookbook is just that. Nothing fancy. It's a small pamphlet with recipes for a few different kinds of pancakes and egg dishes. I kept it, but will probably not use it.

In using the product I found that the griddle gets very hot, even on the recommended medium heat. I do not feel it is safe for letting younger children assist due to the hot surfaces. The bowled out side of the griddle helps to form a perfect shaped pancake. I wish the other side had the same bowling to it so that if you were cooking with any oil that it wouldn't risk spilling. The two sides do not touch when it is closed. I'm not sure why, but this disappointed me. I thought they would. It doesn't affect the performance of the product, but it makes it seem a little "cheap" because of this. With no oil at all the pancakes flipped from one side of the griddle to the other with easy. The pan was clean after using it, requiring no effort at all in clean up.

In all I like Perfect Pancake. It's a nice product. Nothing fancy, just nice. I haven't bought many items from TV advertising, but have found that most aren't quite as amazing as they seem. (Check out my review of Nads, if you don't believe me!) So in all, if you don't set your expectations too high, I don't think you would be disappointed with this. And you can have pancakes that are perfect in shape with relative ease.


Recommended: Yes