Depending on who you talk to, I imagine the Organic Batter Blaster instant pancake batter in a can is either awesome or horrible. Food snobs, or foobies as I like to call them, may think that the Batter Blaster is the beginning of the end of home cooked meals, others might think that it could possibly be the greatest breakfast invention ever, and finally there’s a group of teenagers out there who think it’s “the shizzy” because they believe they can get high by huffing the gas from the Batter Blaster can, which would give them another option beyond canned whipped cream, spray paint, or the sweat stained undershirt of an opium farmer.

My opinion lies somewhere near the belief that is it possibly the greatest breakfast invention ever, because I am one lazy mutha’ucka. Some of you might tell me that making my own pancake mix isn’t time consuming, but it takes me less than 30 seconds to pull the Batter Blaster can out of the refrigerator, shake it well, pop off the cap, and spray it onto a well-heated skillet. Just gathering the ingredients for the pancake mix alone would take more than 30 ticks off the clock.

(Editor’s Note: You can also make waffles with the Batter Blaster, but I do not own a waffle iron, but I do own a hair iron. Please do not ask why.)

The USDA Organic certified Batter Blaster is also a time saver in the clean up department since there’s no need to wash bowls, spoons, measuring cups, and my “Good Looking is Cooking” apron. I don’t have time for mixing and measuring, because I’ve got RSS feeds to read, episodes of MythBusters to watch, and naps to take.

Of course, the convenience of Batter Blaster would be moot if it didn’t make decent pancakes, and fortunately for lazy folks, it does make some surprisingly good flapjacks. Every pancake I made turned out soft, fluffy and tasty. If I took a blind taste test with butter and syrup smothered all over them, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell they came from a can, because butter and syrup have the gift of distraction.

According to the label, each can of Batter Blaster makes approximately 28 pancakes, four inches in diameter. I was able to produce about 24 pancakes with one can, but more importantly I didn’t have to make an entire batch like I would if I made my own pancake mix. With the Batter Blaster, I could make one or two at a time, instead of constructing a tall starchy tower of pancakes that would force me to either eat all of them in one sitting (not recommended) or freeze them (recommended), although turning them into starchy Frisbees would leave me less freezer space for convenient microwaveable frozen foods.

(Nutrition Facts - 1/4 cup - 112 calories, 0.5 grams of fat, 0 grams saturated fat, 0 grams trans fat, 10 milligrams cholesterol, 95 milligrams sodium, 23 grams carbohydrates, 2 grams dietary fiber, 7 grams sugar, 3 grams protein, 0% Vitamin A, 0% Calcium, 0% Vitamin C, 6% Iron, and about 10 Batter Blaster Bikinis)

(Editor’s Note: Thanks to the many people who recommended Batter Blaster. Also, here’s another review of Batter Blaster with action shots and another and another from Serious Eats.)

Item: Batter Blaster
Price: $9.99 (3-pack)
Purchased at: Costco
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Possibly the greatest breakfast invention ever. Surprisingly makes soft, fluffy, and tasty pancakes. Quick and easy to make. USDA Organic. No CFC in the can. No mixing needed. Easy clean up. My “Good Looking is Cooking” apron. Mythbusters. Butter and syrup make everything better.
Cons: Hard to find here on this rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Huffing. Foobies probably think it’s the worst thing in the world.

When I got the Nature’s Path Organic Frosted Strawberry Toaster Pastries, I thought it was going to be made out of organic hippietastic ingredients, like hemp, berries from some forest, pine cones stolen from a raccoon, tie-dye shirts, parts from a 1970s Volkswagon van, and Jerry Garcia’s beard trimmings. But then I realized that if it were truly hippietastic, it wouldn’t come packed in foil wrappers inside a cardboard box, it would be wrapped in leaves, sealed with homemade hemp rope, and delivered by some guy who says, “Hey, man” way too much.

Nature’s Path did a good job of making these organic toaster pastries look like the O.G. of toaster pastries — Pop-Tarts. As for its taste, if someone were to blindfold me, handcuff my hands behind the back of a chair, put a leather spiked leash around my neck, put a Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tart and a Nature’s Path Organic Frosted Strawberry Toaster Pastry in front me in their own doggie dishes, and then tell me I could try each one, only after I say, “May I please try it, Master,” I could definitely tell which one is which. The organic one is surprisingly very good and not as sweet as the original Pop-Tart version, which to me is a little too sweet. The frosting had a nice crunch to it and the whole thing had a slight grainy texture, like there was with the Whole Grain Pop-Tarts I reviewed earlier, but I didn’t really mind that.

Eating these organic toaster pastries made me feel like I was eating healthy Pop-Tarts, and I wish I had some hippie friends I could share them with in a smoke-filled Volkswagon Bus, but I wondered if they were truly healthy. I compared the nutrition facts for these and the Frosted Strawberry Pop-Tarts and it turned out that they are about the same. Of course, the main difference between the two is the fact that the Nature’s Path one is organic, meaning that no synthetic pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers were used in making its ingredients, which truly do give them a health advantage.

As with most organic products, there is a premium with them and these toaster pastries cost higher than their non-organic, big name counterpart. Each box also contains two less pastries than a regular Pop-Tarts box, which can be disappointing when I want to get my food glut on.

(Nutrition Facts - 1 pastry - 210 calories, 4 grams of fat, 2 grams of saturated fat, 0 grams of trans fat, 0 milligrams of cholesterol, 140 milligrams of sodium, 40 grams of carbohydrates, 1 gram of dietary fiber, 19 grams of sugar, 3 grams of protein, 2% calcium, 8% iron, and 0 grams of hippiness.)

Item: Nature’s Path Organic Frosted Strawberry Toaster Pastries
Price: $3.99
Purchased at: Some natural food store
Rating: 8 out of 10
Pros: Surprisingly good. Organic. It’s frosted, bitches! Naturally flavored. Not overly sweet, like regular Pop-Tarts. Zero trans fat. Vegetarian. Not made out of hippietastic ingredients.
Cons: Slight grainy texture. Only six pastries, compared with Pop-Tarts, which have eight. Paying someone to call them “Master.”