A couple of people who’d seen the Flippin’ Fantastic commercial wanted to know if it really was fantastic. Video on the website flippinfantastic.com shows the silicone device with its seven circular openings producing uniform 3-inch pancakes as “easy as 1, 2, 3!” Although pancake-making is its main use, there are also pictures of 3-inch discs of sunny-side-up eggs, omelets and hash browns sitting pretty on plates.
To use it you fill the circles with batter, let them cook on one side, then grab the handles and flip all seven at once. A thin, quarter-inch guard inside each circle is supposed to keep batter from seeping out and hold the pancakes in place when you do your flippin’.
I took the device to my Uncle Tootsie’s kitchen, where my cousin Taryn and I tried the Flippin’ Fantastic using our grandma’s pancake recipe on a griddle. While there was some seepage of batter under the ring, the seven pancakes kept their shape — until I flipped them over and a few of them merged together.
My cousin, meanwhile, cooked free-form pancakes on the other half of the griddle. Mine cooked slower because they were thicker — the ring kept them from spreading out like Taryn’s. In the end I made seven pancakes to her 12.
The results were different, too — the Flippin’ Fantastic pancakes were good but heavier, which led me to say, “I guess it fails, because who likes heavy pancakes?” But apparently Uncle Tootsie does. He said eating light pancakes is like eating air.
This uncle also enjoys breakfast sandwiches, so he wanted to see if the Flippin’ Fantastic could create perfectly sized over-easy eggs to top his English muffin. After finding a pan (he has a lot) to fit the 9-1/2-inch ring, we added the prescribed amount of butter, then cracked in the eggs (we used only two circles for our test). One egg turned out fine; the other fell through its hole when I lifted the gadget to flip it, probably because some of it oozed out when the ring got hot and the inner guard curled a little.
Does it work?: Somewhat.
Pros: I must admit, it was cool flipping seven pancakes at once. (So cool that I’m going to try to come up with other uses, such as making circles of bacon, gelatin or chocolate.) Feels durable. Dishwasher-, microwave- and oven-safe, should you want to use it to bake uniform cookies.
Cons: Takes longer for pancakes to cook, and if you overfill it the batter will rise and spill over. If your pan doesn’t conduct heat evenly, your seven pancakes won’t cook at the same rate — my middle pancake cooked a lot faster than its compadres. Hard to flip softer items like eggs. The handles get a little hot when used in frying pans if they touch the insides of the pan.
Cost and availability: From $3 on amazon.com, $14.95 with the second one free at flippinfantastic.com, $14.99 at bedbathbeyond.com.
Worth it?: For $3 it might be fun to experiment with, but for its primary uses, no.
Got a gadget that you love? Are you curious about one you’d like us to test? Email crave@staradvertiser.com or write Crave, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, 7 Waterfront Plaza Suite 210, Honolulu 96813.
