Birds Eye Choc Chip Pancakes

Yes you read that correctly and no it's not fish fingers or chicken dippers. 

Birds Eye are venturing into frozen breakfast convenience food. It's about time we got some new breakfast options, although pancakes and waffles are an American creation and I'd take a filthy greasy fry up over stodgy sweet desserts I'm open to experimenting. 

Come to think of it apart from going to the hassle of cooking a fry up, breakfast in the U.K is usually pretty boring. Cereal, toast, Mr.1T is partial to a Pop Tart (of which we have a very limited number of U.K standard flavours, why hasn't anybody made an own brand version?) or my everyday choice eggs. 

Birds Eye have come to save the day with a range of microwave frozen products which include the aforementioned Choc Chip Pancakes, Plain Waffles and Cinnamon Waffles. I'm having a slight freezer storage issue at the moment or the waffles would have been straight in too. As I said I do love eggs in the morning so I'm eating my Choc Chip Pancakes now, in my mid afternoon slump. But that's the beauty with these, no faffing around mixing flour and eggs and flipping. Just pop in the toaster (or microwave - ew) for 2 and 1/2 - 3 minutes on the lowest setting and voila! 

Hmm. I don't know what I expected my toaster pancake to look like, and it might look O.K to you but I promise you this looked exactly the same before I toasted it! 

They come in two plastic packets of three which keep the pancakes free from freezer burn and I was slightly unnerved to find they not only looked and smelt the same both pre and post toasting but they felt it too. O.K they were slightly crisper afterwards but they felt soft and squidgy before, nothing like I'd expect something of this type to feel frozen. 

I worked my way inwards to the chocolate chips and wasn't impressed by the pancake itself. I don't normally eat pancakes as such, much preferring a thinner crepe and the thickness just exaggerates how boring and plain pancakes themselves taste. In the interest of reviewing I kept mine plain but Mr.1T added maple syrup to his and hasn't stopped raving about it since - I've lost the rest of the box I think. 

Its obvious and common sense, but the pancakes are clearly all machine made. I know that sounds stupid but it was a bit strange that all 6 of the pancakes had the same chocolate chip pattern throughout - I don't think I've ever had that in a product before.

The chocolate vastly improved things. Because they were inside the pancakes rather than sprinkled on top as I'm used to I was disappointed at first at the lack of melted chocolate. Cutting the pancake open soon changed things and the sweet scent of milky chocolate and runny gooey goodness appeared. 

Considering Birds Eye mainly make "real food" I was pleasantly surprised at the chocolate used.It melted beautifully and added a sweet, quite rich chocolate flavour to the thick kind of stodgy pancake. 

Rating: 

Honestly. and I'm not just saying this, mine are better, though as I said, I do prefer a thinner pancake with more chocolate. However, when I make pancakes I end up having enough batter to make about 10 when I only want 1 and they certainly don't take me 2 and 1/2 minutes from craving to munching. 

For flavour I'll stick to my own but for pure convenience these are pretty damn good! 

6/10 

Kellogg's Crunchy Nut Porridge

I'm not a big breakfast eater, I have a job that means I'm leaving for work as most people are on their way home from a night out and I really can't face eating that early in the morning. But nobody said cereal has to be eaten in the morning! 

I used to eat normal porridge until I discovered overnight oats but I was tempted back by these Crunchy Nut Porridge sachets. 

Before

Waiting..

After 

Porridge is never going to look appetising let's be honest! 

The sachets are easy enough to make up, empty contents into a bowl, fill the sachet up with milk to the line indicated, add that to the bowl, microwave for two minutes, stir and wait two minutes. 

It took a bit of stirring and what felt like longer than two minutes but it might not have been but it thickened up nicely. 

The porridge itself was fine, similar to Ready Brek - sweeter than plain oats and pretty smooth. 

The added Crunchy Nut pieces were good, nice and crunchy and the texture cut through the smooth creamy porridge well. They didn't add too much in terms of flavour overall although my pieces seemed to have all sunk to the bottom and my final few mouthfuls did have more of a nutty flavour. 

I think these sachets will be ideal for someone like my husband. He likes the idea of porridge, a nice warm filling meal/snack that's easy and quick enough to make but he can't stand the consistency of anything porridge like - mash especially! He calls it all slop, but I reckon he'd eat these as the crunchy pieces stop it having such an unpleasant (to him) mouthfeel. 

Originally I rated it a 6/10 but the lack of washing up/ease at making and quickness upped it to a 7/10.