Another problem solved! Nap time?

I'm making a lot of pancakes recently. I've been having fun tweaking the recipe - turns out, adding more baking soda isn't always a great idea.

For one, baking soda is salty, and we're trying to minimize our sodium intake, thank you very much. Also, additional baking soda stops giving you more puff at a certain point, but does thicken the batter, which is 'not so much with the good' for pancakes being done all the way through.

I've tried adding liquid banana flavoring (meh-it's real banana pancakes or forget it), vanilla (meh) and finally lemon. Unsurprisingly, lemon pancakes are delicious! Anyone who likes lemon poppy seed muffins or bread will agree.

I try to control the variables as much as possible - pan, temperature, preheat time, pancake mix consistency, elapsed time before the flip... and still, I tend to allow the pancake to brown too much or not enough.

You would think you could flip an underbrowned pancake back over and it would brown correctly, but you would be wrong. You have missed your chance, Mr. Impatient. You can't put a baby back in the womb, (or can you?) and there are no second chances with pancake doneness.

What's that you're yelling? Cooking and baking is an art, and I should practice? Refine my skills? Learn something?

NO! Once again it is technology which is the solution, and EtchCo to the rescue: I present to you 'The FoodView Extreme!'.

Basically it's a heat-resistant camera in the center of each burner, looking up at the food you're cooking. Originally I pictured a glass-top stove, but The FoodView Extreme! would work with any stove type.

You'll use glass cookware with The FoodView Extreme! - the camera picks up a live feed of your food as it cooks, displaying the image on a monitor built in to the stove itself, into a nearby cupboard, or wirelessly streaming to your iPhone or other wireless device. Color correction software would adjust the image to subtract the ruddy heat glow, ensuring an accurate display of delicious doneness!

Using a phone app, the user can use previously stored images to create a basic image database for doneness - 'Hey, FoodView Extreme! app - in the future, say DING when the bottoms of my cupcakes are this color - thanks'.

The FoodView Extreme! isn't just for the stovetop. With The FoodView Extreme! for ovens, your biscuits and cookies will be perfect each time. No more burnt bottoms! No more underdone middles! Pre-order The FoodView Extreme! today!