Junk Fud and You - Do Candy Companies Change Their Candy?

 People often ask me if the candies they had as a kid are the same as now, the simple answer is no.

I Think Kraft Can Do Better With Their Flavour Boosts, and I'll Prove It

In this candy experiment I take several ingredients and try to make a better Kraft Dinner Flavour Boost, three of them in fact. I make a s'mores, apple pie and peanut butter and banana flavour boost, all of which could be slipped into a packet and sold on shelves.

If you want to see what else I'm up to, make sure to follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter too.

Also be sure to follow me on YouTube if you want to keep up with all my new videos.

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Candy in the Media - How To Make Waffles... sort of

I can't tell you how many times I've scrolled through recipes online just to find the recipe. I'm happy to read a story, but let me get started first.

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Candy In The Media - DIY Cadbury Creme Eggs

Did you eat all your Easter Creme Eggs already, maybe you could make your own.

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Candy In The Media - Classic Coke, I Mean Really Classic

I've always wanted to try some of the original recipes for Coca-Cola, but I also realize how much work it would take to make it.

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We Invented Another Cookie, And It's Called "Theater Floor"

The concept for these cookies is fairly simple, they represent everything you find on a theatre floor. I know this means that this cookie is not very creatively named, but I figure that the concept is the main selling feature. The main reason one would want to make these cookies is if you had a movie night at your house and you had a lot of leftovers, most notably popcorn. This recipe works particularly well if you happen to have another event, say a games night, at your house the day after a movie night. This would mean that you have used the leftover snacks from the movie night to feed the people at your games night.

Ingredients:

2 1/4 Cups all purpose flour

Baking Soda 1 teaspoon

Salt 1 teaspoon

1 cup of salted butter (soft and warm)

Crystal Sugar 3/4 cup

Molasses 1/2 cup

Vanilla 1 teaspoon

2 Large Eggs

Chocolate Chips 1/2 cup

Peanuts 1/2 cup

Things you might find on a theatre floor including:

Popcorn

Peanut M&Ms

Regular M&Ms

Gummies

Skittles

You'll also need an average sized bowl, one mixing bowl, a mixer, a cookie sheet, several things to stir with, measuring cups, and tinfoil or a silicon baking mat. There may be a few other things you'll need, but I'll cover those below.

How to make them:

In one of the small bowl mix the flour with the salt and baking soda. This is simple enough and requires a quick stir and nothing else. Set that bowl aside.

Next, take out your mixer, and on a low setting and add the soft butter, start whipping it a little and slowly add the crystal sugar. You want to keep mixing until the butter is whipped and the sugar is fairly well dispersed throughout, it won't ever blend in perfectly and it should leave your butter feeling a little gritty. Keep in mind that when you bake these cookies, that grit does not go away, the point is that, much like a theatre floor, these cookies are oddly gritty. Then add the molasses, keep mixing with your mixer until the molasses is mixed in, then add your vanilla. I like to use molasses because it makes the cookies dark brown, and a little sticky, just like a theatre floor.

Once this is nicely combined add one egg at a time, keeping the mixer at a fairly low speed. Once it has become one mass as opposed to being made up of ingredients, start adding the flour mixture slowly. Keep mixing until all of the flour has been added and is mixed in well. You'll probably need a spatula to work the sides of the bowl, unless you have a better mixer than I own (hint, hint for my birthday).

Once it's all one glob of cookie greatness we'll no longer need the mixer. Remove the mixer from the equation and slowly stir in the peanuts and chocolate chips. Simply stir in these the additional ingredients using the spatula you used to clean the sides of the bowl while you were mixing. If you have a really awesome mixer you'll have to dirty a spatula. After the peanuts and chocolate chips are mixed in, starting adding your other ingredients. Many of these ingredients can be very delicate, like the gummies and the popcorn, so you'll want to mix in the hardier ingredients first, then add the more delicate ingredients.

As far as what to add to your cookies, it really depends on what you have left over from movie night, and what you like to eat at the movies. Popcorn is the one ingredient I highly recommend, it sells the idea that these are theatre floor cookies. With fruit flavoured ingredients, like Skittles or gummies, I like to add fewer of these. I like the idea that every so often you might randomly bite into a a chewy fruity candy in cookies that are mainly chocolate and nut based, it's a "nice surprise".

Once all of your movie themed treats are mixed with your dough, you'll need a really small spoon. I recommend something smaller than a teaspoon, but bigger than one of those coffee spoons they used to give you at McDonald's in the 80's. For my cookies I use an egg spoon, and it works perfectly.

Now spoon the mixture onto your tinfoil or silicon baking mat while it's on your baking sheet. Keep the cookies small, because lots of little cookies are awesome. Bake each batch of cookies at 375 degrees for about 7 minutes.

Once the cookies are done, let them cool on the rack for a few minutes, and if possible serve immediately. They will last a few days, but they'll taste best right out of the oven.

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Candy In The Media Halloween Edition - Some Candy Ideas From Good Mythical Morning

I'm not sure how "good" these ideas are for hacking your Halloween candy. I'll simply say that these are ideas and you can judge them however you like.

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Our Latest Experiment Is All About Cracker Jacks

In our latest experiment we tried to make homemade Cracker Jacks. Strangely enough it worked, fairly well. Below is a quick version of our recipe along with a few changes we think might make it a little better:

-  Heat your oven to 250 degrees.

-  Mix 8 cups of popcorn with 1 cup of roasted peanuts (maybe make it half a cup of peanuts if you'd like).

-  Take 1/4 of a cup of salted butter and melt it in a pot. Then add 3/8 cups of brown sugar, 1/4 cup corn syrup, 1 tablespoon molasses, and 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Whisk them together and heat them up till they reach 250 degrees (use a candy thermometer).

-  Take the sugar mixture off the heat and add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda and whisk them all together.

-  Poor the sugar mixture into a large bowl over the popcorn and peanut mix.

-  Mix everything up until the popcorn and peanuts are covered (careful it gets hot).

-  After it's all mixed up lay it out on a baking sheet with a silicon baking liner (or you can grease it).

-  Put it in the  oven for 10 minutes, then toss the mixture. repeat this until the mixture has been in the oven for 30 minutes (my original recipe suggested 50 but my oven is small and very hot so I went for 30 instead).

- Take the mixture out of the oven and let it cool for 20 minutes.

-  Break the popcorn and peanuts apart and consume.

-  Make sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to check out some future experiments.

- Follow us on Patreon to help support us and get a bunch of extra content.

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Candy In The Media - It Shouldn't Be Hard, But It Is

Most people look at cheesies (or Cheetos)as a simple snack, but actually they're very complicated, and almost impossible to make at home.

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Candy In The Media - A Home Project Most Of Us Can't Manage

This is the next level in chocolate bar manufacturing, tree to bar.

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Candy In The Media - Apparently Clear Potato Chips Are A Thing

While it seems a little weird, this recipe seems like it'll make something kind of tasty.

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Candy In The Media - Making Your Own Breaking Bad Meth Candy

You have to sit through two other fine recipes, but if you're patient you get a fun, simple recipe for candy that looks like the meth on Breaking Bad.

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Cooking With Candy Critic - Chocolate Covered Candied Bacon

In a perfect world there would be a sweet indulgent treat that would take almost no skill, and almost no time to make.  This treat would make people really happy and have them begging you to make more, since there's no way it's easy enough for just about anybody to make.  Ladies and gentlemen, I have such a recipe.  This recipe takes little effort, almost no skill, and everybody I took these to demanded more.  One person even stole the extras to take home to his family.

What I'm talking about is chocolate covered candied bacon.  It sounds decadent, yet down to earth, but more importantly it sounds way more complicated than it actually is to make.  You'll need a few basic ingredients that most people are very familiar with. Bacon, brown sugar, cinnamon, and chocolate chips. You'll also need two baking pans, and either parchment paper or silicon baking sheet liners. To start off, cut your bacon in half, or thirds, or don't cut it at all. It all depends on how you plan on serving these treats. I chose to cut them into thirds since I was planning on taking these to a public place with a few people around and I wanted them to be easy to eat by hand.

After you've cut the bacon, lay it out on your baking tray that is lined with the parchment paper or silicon tray liners (I prefer the tray liners myself). Then cover the bacon with brown sugar, you want your bacon to have a good solid layer of brown sugar because it's going to melt, and a bunch of it will run off. Then sprinkle on a little cinnamon, this is totally optional, and you can put on as much as you like. Heat your over to 350, and once it's heated put in the tray with the bacon and brown sugar.

After seven and a half minutes, take out your bacon, flip it, and coat it in more brown sugar.  You'll likely need some tongs to do this, although a spatula might work. Put your bacon back in the oven for another seven and a half minutes.  Once it's cooked, take the bacon out and let it cool for about 15 or 20 minutes.  You basically want the bacon to firm up a bit.  When the bacon is just about cooled, take about one cup of chocolate chips for every 5 slices of bacon, unless you really like chocolate, in which case go nuts.  Microwave your chocolate chips for about one minute on high.

When you take the chocolate chips out of the microwave you might notice that they don't look very different, that's OK.  You'll also notice that the bowl they're in is pretty hot, and some of the chips at the bottom are melted.  Quickly stir your chocolate chips, after a minute or so you'll notice that your chocolate chips are melting pretty well.  Keep stirring and don't be fooled about putting the chocolate chips back in the microwave.  This technique tempers the chocolate perfectly for this recipe.

After you've stirred your chocolate chips to the point when they're melted into a smooth milk chocolate, it's time to cover your bacon.  You could try and dip the bacon, but I've had a pretty hard time making that work.  I imagine if you added some cream to the chocolate chips it might be smooth enough to get a good dip, but since we're only using the chocolate, it's still too dense. So what I suggest is to use a spoon or a piping bag and just dump the chocolate on the bacon.  I like to poor it on half of the bacon, and lay it on fairly thick.  If you're more of a bacon fan than a chocolate fan, you might want to go a little lighter, maybe a fancy drizzle on the top.

After you bacon is decorated to your liking, let it set for about 30 minutes, then refrigerate.  If you really like what you're seeing, you can pretty much eat these immediately after you pour the chocolate on them, but the chocolate will be pretty gooey at this point, not that that's a bad thing.  If you let them set in your fridge overnight, they'll be much easier to transport, and a little easier to eat. So there you go, simple chocolate covered candied bacon.

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Cooking With Candy Critic - The Ottawa Snowbank

In March, I was inspired to create a dessert while on a walk to he grocery store. Most people associate Canada with being the land of snow, and in the winter it can be. However we also have warm summers, and it can get up to 35 degrees in some places. This means that spring time is all about thawing snow. This is when snow turns from a pretty white powder you see in storybooks, to a pile of dirty ice/slush. So on this walk I was inspired by these piles of dirty snow to create the ultimate dessert. I noticed how much these piles of snow looked like ice cream covered with Oreo cookie bits, and instantly my mind started to race.

Fortunately I was heading to the grocery store, so I decided to walk through the store in search of the ingredients I'd need to create the ultimate cool treat, inspired by the grossest snow in the world.

The two ingredients I picked up the store were pudding and Oreo cookies, I also needed mint and salt, but I already had that at home.  I'm using fresh mint since I have it growing in my indoor herb garden, but in a pinch dried mint would work too.  As for the pudding, you need two types, vanilla and chocolate. You'll likely use all of the vanilla, and one quarter of the chocolate, so have a few extra pudding bowls ready, just in case.

I started by preparing a few of the ingredients.  First I took apart the cookies, and crushed the cookie bits.  I did two separate batches of cookie bits, one was crushed just a little, the other into a powder. I lightly crushed about six cookies, and powdered three.  You can do more cookies if you like, but I thought this would work for a nice balance. I discarded the icing from the cookies right into my mouth, this is a good step to keep you from just eating the pudding later on. I'm told you can buy already crushed cookies, but what's the fun in that, also, you need two different consistencies for this dessert. I also chopped the mint, but that's not nearly as interesting to read about as crushing cookies.

Once the cookies and mint are prepped, I made both batches of pudding. I prefer instant pudding because I have things to do with my life.  I like the idea of pouring a couple of cups of milk into a bowl with a mysterious powder and getting instant dessert.  Once you've made the pudding, take a few spoonfuls of the vanilla, and mix it with the powdered cookie (not the slightly crushed ones, but the ones you pulverized into a powder). Stir it up until you get a grey looking goo (bonus tip, this is basically how they make The Grey Stuff at Walt Disney World). You should now have two large bowls of pudding (one vanilla and one chocolate), one small bowl of pudding that looks kind of grey, a bowl of cookie crumbs, chopped mint, and salt. 

Now it's time to make your frozen treats.  Get yourself some kind of Popsicle maker, the shape doesn't really matter, however it might be weird if they were shaped like your favorite cartoon character or something. Having said that, I won't judge.  First add some cookie crumbs to the bottom of the Popsicle mold. Then spoon or pour in some vanilla pudding, about one quarter of the way up.  Add some more cookie crumbs, then add more vanilla pudding to about the halfway point. On this next level drop in a few dollops of the Oreo cookie pudding (it will be gloppy, that's the point). Then add a few more cookie crumbs and more vanilla pudding till about the three quarter mark.

Add more cookie bits, and a few dollops of the Oreo pudding if you like, but before you add the vanilla pudding, sprinkle in a little salt.  Not too much, just a dash. This is to represent the salt they use to clean the streets, it also adds a fun flavour when you get to that layer.  After you've added the salt, add a bit more vanilla pudding, but only a bit, leaving room for a few more cookie bits, your mint, and some chocolate pudding. The chocolate pudding and mint represent the mud and leaves at the bottom of the snowbank. It also adds an interesting flavour.

Once you have all your layers done, put the treats in the freezer, and let them sit overnight. The great thing about this recipe is, if you make a mess, it's only more realistic.  You can also alter the design if you like to better represent the gross snowbanks near your house.

If you don't want to freeze this dessert, you can do it in bowls as well, but I find the bowls look too fancy. Just make sure to follow the instructions above, only backwards. Also, since they're not frozen, then don't really represent "snowbanks" as well.

Once you're Ottawa Snowbanks are frozen, taken them out and enjoy.  Much like making them, the great thing about these is if you make a mess, it's only more realistic.

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This Week In Candy

We had a bit of a technical problem last week, only this time the technical problem had nothing to do with the internet, or my computer. Last week's technical problem had to do with my molar.  Last week, after biting into a loaf of cinnamon raisin bread (you will have seen it on our Facebook and Twitter feeds) it felt like something went wrong in my mouth.  After a few bites I noticed that something appeared to be digging into my tong. I assumed that I had something stuck between my teeth, and felt around a little with my finger.  I quickly realized that the thing digging into my tong was attached to my tooth.

As it turns out I broke a filling... On cinnamon raisin bread.  I managed to struggle with it that night, but I didn't sleep very well.  The next day I called my dentist and made an emergency appointment.  As it turns out I managed to destroy one of my old fillings (as a note I should remind everybody that I haven't had a new cavity in several years). My dentist fixed me up, but unfortunately I happen to require a lot of Novocaine to freeze my mouth, so I was out of commission for a couple of days.  In fact it's been 5 days since the procedure and my jaw still hurts.

So this means three things, first of all I missed one of the reviews in our Icelandic candy review-a-thon, I made up for it yesterday though.  Secondly I was not able to finish writing my recipe for the Ottawa Snowbank ice cream treat I created.  I should be making up for that later this week.  Finally, I may, or may not be posting the latest episode of Junk Fud On The Road this week.  It may have to wait till next week as we couldn't record it last week.  At times like this I'm glad that I write many of my reviews well in advance.

Speaking of which, this week's review was one I wrote earlier in the summer, but I was surprised it took me that long.  Take 5 is a bar that's been around for a while, but I've just never been that keen to review it.  After eating it, I'm not that keen on getting it again either. Click here to find out why.

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This Week In Candy

It's a busy week here at candycritic.org.  First and foremost we're celebrating the wonderful island nation known as Iceland.  We're celebrating with an entire week filed with reviews in our Icelandic Candy Review-A-Thon. The main theme you'll notice throughout this review-a-thon is licorice. It's not to say that every single candy has licorice in it, but it seems like a popular theme in Iceland.  We're also posting the latest episode of Chris, What Would You Eat That?!! featuring and Icelandic delicacy, and since this is Chris, Why Would You Eat That?!! you can bet that this delicacy is terrible.

Hopefully sometime this week (if not next week week) we'll be posting a Candy Critic recipe. It's been a while since I posted a recipe on this blog, and it's been way too long.  This new recipe is something of my own invention, I call it an Ottawa Snowbank. Fortunately it tastes better than it's namesake.  We're looking to post more and more recipes on the blog, and we're always experimenting, you can keep up with our experiments and help us out on Twitter and Facebook.

As I mentioned before, this week's going to be filled with Icelandic candy reviews, starting with this odd licorice and chocolate candy that I really enjoyed.  I'm still not sold on loving licorice, but with candies like this, I'm certainly liking them more.  Click here to read our first Icelandic candy review, and make sure to keep up with our Icelandic Candy Review-A-Thon on our Facebook and Twitter pages, or just by checking this page every day.

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Candy In the Media

Not only will this teach you the science of gum, but you can even learn to make some yourself.

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Candy Critic Dessert Club – The Simplest Recipe Ever - Banana Ice Cream

This is probably the simplest dessert you'll ever make, it's not necessarily a fast dessert, particularly because you have to wait for it to chill, but the ingredients can be very simple.  The part where this recipe can get complicated is totally in your control.  The base ingredient, banana, is all you "need", anything after that is up to you, and can be as complicated as you want.  The other great thing about this recipe is for those out there with lactose intolerance, it's ice cream with no cream.

The Ingredients:

2 or 3 heaping tablespoon fulls of Nutella, or 2 or 3 heaping tablespoons of peanut butter, or a generous amount of coaco powder, or half a cup of walnuts... pretty much anything you can think of that would work to flavour ice cream.
5 Bananas

You'll also need a blender.

That's it.

The first part of this recipe is probably the most complicated part.  There are two things that might make this harder than it needs to be.  The first is your bananas, the riper your bananas the better.  If you find yourself with a bunch of bananas that seem to be going bad, but you don't have time to make this recipe, I recommend peeling them, and putting them in the freezer.  Then when you're ready to make your banana ice cream, thaw them out and put them in your blender.  If you're making this with "fresh" ripe bananas simply put them in the blender.  The consistency of your bananas is key for the first part of this recipe.  If your bananas are not ripe enough you'll run into some problems with your blender.  If your bananas aren't that ripe, but you still want to make this ice cream, chop up your bananas and ad them to your blender.  It may take a little while longer to blend them, and you may have to push them down a few times before everything starts to come together.

The second "difficult" part of this recipe is all about what you put in it.  If you love bananas, stop after you've blended the bananas and you're good.  If you want to ad more to the recipe there are several options.  My favorites are peanut butter and Nutella.  Both of these ingredients ad a lot of flavour to the ice cream and blend really well.  If you're worried about sugar, you can simply ad cocoa powder, and that works fairly well.  I've never tried this, but vanilla, berries, or anything soft would probably work as well.  Once you've got the soft ingredients blended to a soupy consistency, you can ad anything for texture, if you'd like.  Crushed walnuts or hazelnuts work, marshmallows might be fun too.  Blend your hard ingredients, but only for a few pulses of your blender.  You could also just mix them around with a spoon or spatula if you'd like as well.

Once your ingredients are all mixed together, take the wonderful banana soup and put it in a freezer friendly container with a lid.  Put the container in your freezer, and in a few hours, depending on how cold your freezer is, you'll have ice cream.  If your freezer is really cold, it may come out very hard (since there's no air injected into it).  If that's the case, simply microwave your ice cream for about 15 to 20 seconds to soften it up.  No matter what you'll taste banana in this ice cream, but with some nice additional ingredients it can be so much more.

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Candy Critic Dessert Club - Inventing a Cookie That I Call Frank.

Or at least I think I invented a cookie.  Yesterday I woke up with an idea, I wanted to invent a cookie.  Nothing ground breaking, but just something that I've never tried before.  You might read this and say "hey, I've made that cookie before it's called a "insert name of cookie here"".  The thing is, I haven't.  I've never eaten or heard of a cookie that is like the one I invented.  I took some cookie basics, switched a few things up (both in ingredients and in process) and baked my heart out.  I asked my friends what I should call this cookie, and only one person responded, so until I get a better idea this cookie will be known as "Frank".

Ingredients

2 1/4 Cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup of unsalted butter (soft and warm)
3/4 cup of white sugar
3/4 cup of maple syrup
1 teaspoon of vanilla
2 large eggs
1 cup whole walnuts
175 grams of dark chocolate (Lindt 70%)

You'll also need two average sized bowls, one mixing bowl, a mixer, a cookie sheet, several things to stir with, measuring cups, and tinfoil. There may be a few other things you'll need, but I'll cover those below.

In one of the small bowl mix the flour with the salt and baking soda.  This is simple enough and requires a quick stir and nothing else.  Set that bowl aside. Then take your dark chocolate and put it in a Ziploc bag and beat the hell out of it with a meat tenderizer or hammer.  You want the chocolate to be as small as you can get it, and let out a little frustration while you're at it.  Second, take the walnuts and chop the heck out of them in your food processor.  You can chop them into dust, or if you get bored you can leave a few chunky surprises, but for the most part pulverize those nuts.  Empty the nuts into your second average bowl and put the pounded chocolate into the food processor and pulverize them as well.  Again you can leave a few chunky bits as surprises, but you want most of it to be very small bits.  Ad that chocolate to the bowl with the walnuts.

Next, take out your mixer on a low setting and ad the butter, start whipping it a little and slowly ad the white sugar.  Keep going until the butter and sugar are bonded well (creamed), and then add the maple syrup.  Keeping mixing with your mixer until the maple syrup is mixed in, then ad your vanilla.  Then ad one egg at a time, keeping the mixer at a fairly low speed.  Once everything is nicely mixed together, in other words once it becomes one mass as opposed to being made up of ingredients, start adding the flour mixture slowly.  Keep mixing until all of the flour has been added and is mixed in well.  You'll probably need a spatula to work the sides, unless you have an awesome mixer.

Once it's all one glob of cookie greatness we'll no longer need the mixer.  Remove the mixer from the equation and slowly stir in the nut and chocolate.  Simply stir in these bits using the spatula you used to clean the sides of the bowl while you were mixing.  If you have a really awesome mixer you'll have to dirty a spatula.  Once the chocolate and nuts are mixed you'll need a really small spoon.  I recommend something smaller than a teaspoon, but bigger than one of those coffee spoons they used to give you at McDonald's in the 80's.  For my cookies I used an egg spoon, and it worked perfectly.

Now spoon the mixture onto your tinfoil covered baking sheet.  Keep them small, because lots of little cookies are awesome.  Bake each batch of cookies at 375 degrees for 7 minutes.  Many people might argue that it would be simpler to make one giant cookie, and it would look so very cool.  I argue that little cookies are so much better, and here's why:

First of all they take a lot less time to cook, and the less time it takes from those cookies to go from being ingredients to going into my mouth the better.

Secondly, if you cook one giant cookie, people will know if you sampled a bit while you're cooking, because there will be bite marks.  Bake little cookies and you can sample a little from each batch, and there will be so many cookies that no one will notice that you ate 17 of them.

Finally, little cookies are cute.

Once the cookies are done, let them cool on the rack for a few minutes, and if possible serve immediately. They will last a few days, but they'll taste best right out of the oven.

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Candy Critic Dessert Club – Allison's Special - Pancakes!

I love Allison's pancakes, there I said it.  I love Allison too, even more than her pancakes, but as long as I can have both, I'm in a pretty good place.  Allison only makes her pancakes if we have at least 2 guests visiting for brunch.  Because of this rule, we've had more brunches at our house than any other meal combined.  People always tell Allison that she shouldn't "fuss" over these pancakes for them, but frankly, some of these people would never be invited if pancakes weren't on the line.

Allison claims that her pancakes are simple, but I disagree, while the ingredients are simple, the finesse to make them just right is something that must be practiced.  If you happen to make this recipe, screw it up, please send pictures as I'd like to prove that to Allison how awesome she is.

The ingredients (Think 2s):

2 cups all purpose flour

2 table spoons white sugar
2 tea spoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt

2 cups milk

2 table spoons oil

2 eggs (optional you can separate the egg yolks and beat whites to fold into mixture)

This first thing you can do is mix all of the dry ingredients together, that means the flour, white sugar, baking powder, and salt.  The great thing about this is that you can do this part well in advance.  Since you want to have pancakes that came fresh off the pan, and often this means getting up early to make these pancakes, why not get through part of the recipe the night before.  Sleep in a few minutes before your guests arrive.

Next mix in the milk, but do it slowly.  If you mix the milk in too quickly you'll get lumps, and you don't want lumps.  This is also the part that requires a bit of practice, depending on the flour and the milk  you use, sometimes 2 cups is a little too much or no exactly enough.  You want a slightly thick batter, but again, NOT LUMPY!  You might have to practice this a few times because unfortunately you don't really know if your mixture is  too runny until you put it on the hot pan, and by that time it's way too late to add more flour.

This is a point where you can mix in any extra ingredients you might want.  In our house chocolate chips are acceptable, fruit is not.  These are not my rules as I love blueberry or raspberry pancakes, but since she's making them, I'm not complaining.

Once you have the unlumpy batter mixed, stir in the oil and the eggs... sort of.

This is also the time where you can decide if you want to be lazy, or if you want to have the fluffiest pancakes in the world.  If you want to be lazy, mix in the eggs and oil and you're done. You will have slightly fluffy pancakes using this method, but they could be fluffier.  If you want to go the extra mile, add your oil, and separate the eggs and just add the egg yolks.  Then, beat the egg whites in a separate bowl until they're stiff (or can hold their shape).  Then fold in the egg white into the batter, but don't mix it too much.

Once you have the batter mixed, and any other ingredients mixed in as well, it's time to cook these bad boys.  Allison uses a standard ladle as her measurement, and in a large pan can fit 3.  There's also a bit of oil in the pan to keep them from sticking.  She cooks the pancakes until she can see the brown around the  edges and carefully flips them.  This can take a different amount of time depending on how thick the batter is, how big the pancakes are, and how hot the pan is.  Keep in mind that when you start making the pancakes the pan will be cool, so it might take a little longer than the 2nd or 3rd batch.  All I can say is that pancake cooking takes a bit of practice and chances are you'll ruin a few.

I could get into flipping pancakes, but frankly I think it's magical.  The first flip is always the most dangerous because at this point the top of your pancake is still batter, and it can be messy.  One quick motion and a little bit of nerve seems to be the way to go.  One thing to keep note is that under doing your pancakes is better than burning them, so error on the side of caution.

To keep your pancakes warm, put your stove on to about 190 degrees.  Put a tin foil covered cookie sheet in the oven, and as you finish each batch put them on the cookie sheet.  It's also a good idea to drape another sheet of tin foil on top of your pancakes in the oven to keep the moisture in.  Once all your pancakes are done, top them with whatever you want (except Vermont  maple syrup, after all we're Canadian), and serve.

A great deal of our relationship hovers around the making of pancakes.  I know that making them is a lot of work for Allison, and I appreciate it.  I tend to make her a ridiculous amount of bacon  when we have pancakes (often burning my arms in the process), so there is some mutual cooking going on.  I'm also in charge of many of the other toppings, while Allison doesn't go for them, our guests are often keen, and happy guests means we gain a reputation for having these meals, which means we have more of these meals, which means I get more pancakes.

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