Mixed Review: Vosges' Bacon Chocolate Chip Pancakes

[Photographs: Lucy Baker]

This year Valentine's Day falls on a Sunday. Instead of treating your sweetie to a fancy (and expensive) restaurant dinner, why not prepare a romantic breakfast in bed? My ideal meal would consist of champagne, strawberries, and Vosges's new Mo's Bacon Chocolate Chip Pancakes. At $12, the mix is far more expensive than your average box of Aunt Jemima, but trust me: it's worth every penny.

For a closer look at Vosges Haute Chocolate, check out our Nikki Goldstein's review. As Nikki writes, Vosges is known "for pushing the boundaries of chocolate creativity." Their pancake mix is no exception.

It combines traditional buttermilk flapjacks with chunks of Vosges most popular candy bar, Mo's Milk Chocolate Candy Bar with applewood smoked bacon and smoked Alder sea salt.

In a word: yum. Nothing says "I love you" quite like chocolate and pork.

Preparing Vosges' pancakes takes a bit more work than making pancakes from your average mix. In one bowl goes the mix, in another an egg white and 1 1/2 cups buttermilk, in a third an egg yolk and 2 tablespoons of melted butter. The wet ingredients are combined and then quickly stirred into the mix, creating a lumpy batter.

The instructions offer two methods for incorporating the bacon chocolate chunks: you can either sprinkle them on top of each pancake before flipping them in the pan, or layer them between the finished pancakes before serving.

I began with the first method but quickly abandoned it. The chocolate melted too quickly, coating the bottom of each pancake and creating a mess in the pan. Sprinkling the chunks between the pancakes proved to be much more effective. They melted only partially, resulting in an irresistible combination of melted, gooey chocolate filled with nuggets of smoky, salty bacon.

Is the Vosges mix better than a supermarket mix with crumbled bacon and chocolate chips thrown in? I believe it is. Even without the bacon chocolate chunks, the pancakes themselves were delicious: light, fluffy, and slightly tangy from the buttermilk. They browned nicely in the pan, and had no hint of artificial sweetness or discernible chemical flavor. I would highly recommend them for any special occasion breakfast.

As my boyfriend said, tucking into his second stack, "This is the best Valentine's Day ever, and it's not even Valentine's Day yet."

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