Eating IHOP's cheesecake-stuffed pancakes

Salon's Francis Lam sampled one of IHOP's bizarre cheesecake-stuffed pancakes and wrote the experience up in gut-churning detail:

Bite 1: Whoa, I think I just caught a crispy bite of pancake edge. That's like the holy grail of pancake edges! That's a good start.
Bite 2: OK, there's not so much cheesecake in here, but it was weirdly, obviously squeezed on, like with one of those caulk guns Taco Bell uses for its "sour cream." It tastes pretty good, though. Kinda tangy, kinda creamy. But man, that strawberry syrup is glowing lava red. And the crispy edge was pretty short-lived.
Bite 3: I never really want to eat as many pancakes as people will put on a plate, but this isn't so ba... muh ... exxxxcushe me, I jusht hit a geysher of cheeshcake. I can't really open my mouth. It's shtuck. Maybe forever.
Bite 4: Water, water, water. Clean it out. Focus. Concentrate. Oh look! I forgot about my side of sausage!

IHOP's kinder, gentler novelty fat food: Cheesecake-stuffed Pancake Stackers

(Image: Francis Lam)

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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misterjuju

My 12 year old brother ate a whole stack of these last weekend. Heâ€™s a pretty small kid, so even the waiter was surprised. He got blueberry, which were covered in a very unnatural blue syrupy gooâ€¦yum.
Jaycatt

Whenever I see the new novelty pancake from IHOP I can’t stop thinking of Nannerpuss. I guess they’re just for kids, aren’t pancakes sweet enough with just maple syrup? I love strawberries on pancakes as well, but please leave off the sweet sauce!
Robert

Someone once wrote that IHOP served whole plates of candy to adults. I wonder who that was? Hmmm… Was it a doctor? With an Eastern-European sounding name? ;)

I’ve got my finger on the “Whooooosh!” button… just waiting…
PixelFish

They sound pretty similar to the fruit-and-creme cheese pancakes of a few years ago. (Also a disappointment.)

BTW, not that IHOP has ever been the healthiest of places to eat, but when eating there, one should exercise super caution, since sometimes they don’t list all the ingredients on the menu. Once when I was on a business trip with a coworker, we ate at the IHOP next to our hotel because everything else was inconveniently far. She was avoiding gluten and so was sticking religiously to things like their omelettes. EXCEPT…they were putting pancake batter in with the omelette to make it larger and fluffier. We found this out when we asked what size eggs they were using to get these ginormous omelettes from 3 eggs, and our waiter confessed. (It might be labelled on the menu now–I don’t know, haven’t been for a while, but at the time it was NOT.)
Anonymous

I wish food manufacturers would stop thinking people want their fruit sauces in eye searingly bright artificial colors. Traffic light red strawberry syrup doesn’t make me want to eat them, it makes me queasy thinking about what they put in there to make it that way. Plutonium?

Seriously manufacturers, a light or even pale red is ok. And ease up on the corn syrup while you are at it.
Anonymous

Francis Lam also wrote an entertaining review of the KFC Double Down sandwich for salon.com…
siliconsunset

These things are called “Pancake Stackers”.

I point out the distinction because they also have an item called the “NY Cheesecake pancakes”, which are buttermilk pancakes with cheesecake chunks added to the batter and topped with a strawberry compote. The “Pancake Stackers” are traditional buttermilk pancakes, globs of cheesecake between them, topped with an Apple Cinnamon, Strawberry, or Blueberry compote.

Why yes, I *do* work at IHOP. :/
- Anonymous
  
  I’ve had those NY cheesecake pancakes! They were pretty tasty. The syrup can be a bit much, but you don’t have to use it all. The whole thing was a bit dessert-y, but the sourness of the cheesecake pieces balanced the sweetness for me.
  
  I think IHOP still does do some international pancakes; I know they have Swedish ones anyway. I like IHOP. Much nicer than Dennys, Ablebees, and the like.
shawnaroo

For a while IHOP had cornmeal pancakes and those were awesome. They’re gone now, and that makes me very sad.
Brainspore

Wouldn’t it be quicker just to inject the cheesecake batter directly into my arteries?
- Felton
  
  Quicker, yes, but your death-by-cheesecake would be a lot less tasty.
Anonymous

Whatever-they’re really not that bad.
gobo

I miss the “international pancakes” that gave them their name. :(
- Felton
  
  Are those gone? Wow, it’s been awhile since I’ve been to an IHOP.
Trent Hawkins

It was the late Mitch Hedberg that coined the phrase “to pancake”. That is when you’re all happy at first, but then by the end, you’re sick of ‘em.
MadRat

I first heard about these from the This Is Why You’re Fat blog. ( http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/post/561150527/ihop-pancake-stacker-a-layer-of-cheesecake )