Joanna Gaines Ignites A Heated Breakfast Debate Over Crispy Pancakes

While you might think that the topic of food would be safer than, say, politics, it actually can make for some pretty acrimonious debates. After all, we all eat the stuff, and every single one of us has our preferences. Some of these preferences are ones we feel sufficiently passionate about that we may even separate ourselves into camps: vegan vs. carnivore, Coke vs. Pepsi, Geno's vs. Pat's King of Steaks. With breakfast, however, the only real rivalry we were aware of prior to this point is sweet vs. savory (we're firmly in both camps, opting for bacon, eggs, and pancakes). Well, apparently, we were wrong about that. It seems Magnolia Network star Joanna Gaines has a rather divisive way of cooking pancakes -– she (gasp!) makes them with crispy edges. Naturally, TikTok has opinions.

Gaines posted a clip of her preparing bananas Foster pancakes from her new cookbook "Magnolia Table, Volume 3," and at one point she utters the controversial words "I like that darker edge crisp." Some people agreed, such as the commenter who says "Yes crispy" accompanied by thumbs-up emojis and the one who opines "Best part is the dark edge." On the flip side, there are some detractors, such as the commenter who wrote, "I don't like the crispy edges, I don't eat them." To be fair to this person, they may not be in the minority. If you Google pancake images, you won't see too many dark edges, nor do many recipes call for cooking pancakes to this stage.

It's interesting that this particular pancake recipe touched off any kind of controversy as Gaines has released a number of pancake recipes before and we can't see that any of these have sparked much in the way of backlash. Nor, for that matter, have any of these pancakes appeared to be especially crispy. Better Homes and Gardens posted a video of pecan pancakes with maple butter made from one of Gaines' "Magnolia Table" recipes, and they looked, well, pretty pancakey and not particularly dark around the edges. Gaines' cinnamon roll pancakes, too, are meant to be cooked until the edges are just a bit dry, as is pretty standard for pancakes (nobody likes raw batter, after all), but the recipe says nothing about burning them.

One YouTuber who filmed her efforts to explore every recipe in Gaines' "Magnolia Table" oeuvre did struggle a bit with a recipe for ricotta pancakes, but excess crispiness was not part of the problem. Instead, she found that her pancakes came out raggedy and uneven until she employed a pancake mold to make them in. She did, however, admit that part of the problem may have been that her frying pan wasn't quite up to the standard of whatever Gaines may have in her own well-stocked TV studio/kitchen.