Marcels Hotcakes product reviews

I have been looking for something for my kids to snack on during the day which is healthier than crackers and biscuits so decided to buy these. I do often make pikelets myself at home but they don't really compare to these ones and it saves me the hassle of standing over a frying pan making them myself. I bought the packet of 24 mini hot cakes as I thought they would be a great size for in between meals.

The kids loved them just plain on there own with nothing on them as they could just grab them out of the packet from the cupboard, but Cai did have some with some butter and jam on for his lunch. The size for the kids is perfect as I know they will not get to full to eat their dinner if they just have a couple. I however think for me and Olly the full size hot cakes would be better.

We had some with some fresh cream and berries, but you couldn't really make a stack with the small hot cakes like you could with bigger ones, but still absolutely divine. The hot cakes themselves have such a nice vanilla taste,and they are really soft and smooth, a lot of the time when I make my own I over mix the mixture and they come out to tough, I also can't get my own in such beautiful round shapes and have never had any luck using a cookie cutter to try get a round shape.

In the words of my charming 11 year old, these are way way way better than my pikelets, so I guess I might as well buy these again rather than making my own!

I used to make a lot of these for myself when I was a little more active in the kitchen, but time and age has taken a lot of the fine motor skills and reflex times away from me, and since my cooker is gas I just don't feel easy using it any more. So when I got the chance to try these my memories of childhood visits to the US came flooding back.

I recall sitting in a diner near the Seattle airport shortly after getting off the plane, and asking what they had for breakfast. It was early evening local time but my stomach was still on the Aotearoa clock. The waitress looked at me for a second, smiled and said the only thing they could do me in the way of breakfast was eggs, bacon, flapjacks and coffee. So I just winked at her (I was a lot younger then) and told her to surprise me.

When she put the plate in front of me, I was surprised. For Kiwis, pancakes (which the yanks called flapjacks) were almost always a sweet, so to find a stack of three layered with bacon, fried eggs, and what passes for butter over there (We'd call it heavily whipped cream) wasn't something I was expecting. But I tell you, it sure tasted fine after rubbish airline food!

These packs come with six hotcakes, so I was planning a trip[ down memory lane. Of course, to cook bacon and fried eggs I was going to need help, so it was lucky I had a friend visiting later that day. She was willing to join me, and do the labour in exchange for a meal, and it was every bit as I remembered it. Fluffy hotcakes with eggs and good Hellers bacon fried in REAL butter, with the hotcakes reheated in the toaster to give them a bit more crispiness - I could have died during that meal and felt no sadness.

The only problem I have with these is the pack is just too small! I would like to see bigger packs, but I guess I will just have to settle for buying two each week instead.

These take me back to my childhood, to visits to the USA and the many, many, many breaksfasts we had in roadside diners as we drove all over the place like gypsies on our big family holidays. Breakfast for me was always the same... a triple stack with pigs, mashed monkey snacks and juice. In other words, three thick hotcakes, layered with sliced or mashed banana, topped with bacon and drowned in hot syrup. I think it was corn syrup or cane syrup, but frankly at that age I just didn't care.

Being able to pass this evil delight on to my family, none of whom have ever left the country, was a real delight. The only problem is that no matter how much I try, I just can not get fluffy hotcakes. I get these horrible, chewy slabs of dough that are as appealing to me as trying to chew on rubber sheeting. Buying decent hotcakes always seemed to be so wildly expensive... it seems now that for years I have simply been shopping at the wrong places, because Marcel's hotcakes have been around a while and I just never saw them. Until now.

These are light, fluffy, tasty without being so strong as to drown out the taste of anything you put with them... but most importantly they are filling. Beating the McD's hotcakes hands down, these are simply amazing to wrap your lips around and chew. I tried them savoury, as per my childhood memories, and also sweet, layering them with jam and/or curb, topping them with fruit salad or banana, and covering them in whipped cream and a light drizzle of Lothlorien Feijoa and Honey Liqueur - utterly amazing! Especially with the liqueur over the top!

Overall, these are something I have decided will always be in the fridge as long as the budget allows for it. You get 6 in a pack for about $4 so the value is acceptable, but the flavour and variety of uses makes them just incredibly appealing to have on hand. I just have to fight the urge to have these as all three meals of the day! These, with scrambled eggs and baked beans... heavenly!

One of the benefits of having travelled a lot in my younger days is that I have been lucky enough to have tried a lot of different foods, both in their natural habitat and in bad knock-off joints. Nothing has ever been so contradictory for me as hotcakes.

While they are certainly very tasty and can in many cases be quite healthy, they do seem to be treated more as a sweet dish, so plastered with butter and drowned in sugar syrup of one kind or another. I have always liked mine to be simple and tasty. a small knob of butter, some sliced banana and a little touch of cinnamon gently sprinkled over the top. Pure bliss. Especially if there is a stack of three.

So when I was offered a chance to try these, and found they were made by a Belgian, I knew they were going to be good. Belgians are nothing if not good at their batter goods. My vouchers arrived, and after a long and somewhat frustrating, for an old chap on his scooter, search around town I finally found them and got them home to try.

I am very glad they are cheap, because after a single stack for lunch, I finished the rest of the bag off right away. Because these came as vouchers in the mail, for once I didn't have the whanau popping in for another "surprise visit" after the courier van had been. I am so glad, because I may have had trouble sharing these after my first bite.

They are now on my whiteboard as part of the shopping list. They are written in permanent marker. This is going to be breakfast or lunch for many days to come. I got so wrapped up in eating these, I have had to leave the Crepes for another day.

When I was first offered Marcel's Hotcakes to review I thought to myself why would anyone buy them when they are so easy to make. i was so wrong. These hotcakes are so much nicer than any pikelets I have ever tasted.

The first challenge when I got the voucher was finding a store that stocked it. It also didn't help that I didn't know where in the store it would be. I found it in the third store I went to and it was in the chiller in the bakery. Now I know where to get these I'll be picking them up regularly.

The bag suggested the hotcakes were heated in the microwave, oven or toasted. I decided to try them in the toaster. I wasn't sure how long to leave them in so I took them out when the kids got impatient (less than it would take to toast bread). It was so quick and easy.

I served it with vanilla ice cream and maple syrup. I gave my pre-schoolers one each and they had both devoured it before the next ones were heated. They demanded another one each and these disappeared in a flash too. My poor husband was mowing the lawns at the time as I had to have the last two hotcakes.

These hotcakes are so light and fluffy. They were extra moreish with the toppings. The flavour of the hotcakes isn't strong so it goes well with everything that you serve it with.

My daughter call these oddcakes as they told me they don't look like a cake. Since these were so popular next time I buy them I'll have to get two packets so we can all have some.

I discovered Marcel's Hot Cakes this year when I was looking to cut back on my weekly spending. Every Saturday I would go out and do the weekly food shop and come back via a fastfood restaurant for breakfast for the family. While this was a nice gesture, it was eating up my spending money and I was about to go on maternity leave. Enter Marcel's.

For less than the cost of a kid's meal, you get 6 hot cakes which is plenty of breakfast for two adults and a child. Dress it up with some maple syrup and butter. You can even add a bit of grilled banana or bacon or both. I switched the family to Marcel's and we have these hotcakes quite regularly now.

We have eaten these as a breakfast food plenty and certainly the most savoury we have done was add bacon to the maple syrup and the bananas. For this review I decided to go outside of the box.

For dinner tonight, I served the hot cakes with bacon, a cheesy omelette and some Barker's Spicy Eggplant Chutney. Hot cakes are not just a sweet food option and I wanted to experiment with these a bit.

The hot cakes were nice cakey consistency, and quite thick and filling. They had a slight sweetness to them, which does make them an excellent maple syrup delivery system. But the sweet did compliment the chutney and the bacon as well. Other flavour options I looked at were using the hot cakes instead of tacos, or adding baked beans and cheese as well.

These are a great price. Six hot cakes to the bag certainly does our family, though once our youngest is a year old we may have to buy an extra bag. They taste good, and the sweetness is subtle enough to allow lots of variation in your toppings. I'll continue to buy Marcel's.