For my first  Shrove Tuesday in England, I decided to try out three different pancake batters and test my friends to see if they could pick the cheapest, the priciest and the one I made from scratch. Our three competitors were Sainsbury’s pancake mix, coming in at 90p,  M&S traditional pancake shaker mix, coming in at a slightly pricier £1 and finally, homemade batter for which I already had the ingredients (aka free). To ensure the sanctity of the experiment, I cooked all three batters at the same temperature with the same amount of oil before placing them on separate plates to serve to my friends and see who could guess which was which.

During the cooking process, one thing became immediately clear – the homemade batter cooked much more evenly, with far fewer jagged edges. The homemade batter also flipped better, and stretched more evenly across the pan. Between Sainsbury’s and M&S there was little difference.

After standing over the stove for longer than I would have liked, I had 18 pancakes and four hungry friends to feed them to.

Upon presenting the three plates of pancakes to my friends Beth, Tom, Sam and Glen three out of four guessed correctly as to which plate was homemade on sight alone.

Tom said: “The texture of this one [the homemade one] looks more consistent than the others” And Beth agreed.

Glen said the homemade pancakes appeared to have been fried a little better than the other two plates however Sam said he thought the roughest looking plate was homemade as it was more rustic.

When it came to telling the difference between the Sainsbury’s and M&S pancakes, it was more difficult.

On tasting the M&S pancakes, Beth could tell that they were ‘definitely not homemade’ because the texture was chewier, and Tom noted that they were ‘unusually sweet in a not-home-made way’”

When it came to which they liked better, Tom and Beth liked the homemade pancakes the best, followed by the Sainsbury’s batter and then the M&S, but Sam preferred the M&S, then Sainsbury’s, and in a blow to my cooking confidence, the homemade pancakes last.

Although the pre-mixed batters were certainly convenient, the homemade mix was incredibly easy and cheap to make and in my opinion, yielded better results than the pre-mixed.

It might be slightly more effort, but the texture and cooking ease is well worth it – and I think the homemade ones looked better on the plate too.

The pre-mixed batters were both slightly too oily for my liking, but I wouldn’t say no to eating either of them again.