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Does It Really Do That? Flippin' Fantastic

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - Kristy Scheibel has two young, growing boys to feed, but breakfast isn't always easy. She says she would be willing to try anything that can help in the mornings.

So, we asked her to put Flippin' Fantastic to the test. It promises perfect pancakes every time, along with eggs, omelets, and hash browns.

The mold is made of non-stick silicone and contains seven rings, which claims to hold batter or other liquids or food. It also advertises for easy flipping thanks to its "EZ flip grips."

Kristy used a just-add-water pancake mix and followed the instructions that came with Flippin' Fantastic. She first washed the product, sprayed it with oil, and heated it for 15-20 seconds on each side. Using a 12-inch pan, Kristy poured the batter into each ring.

Right away, Kristy noticed the batter was leaking underneath one of the rings.

"That one's not fully touching the pan so it's falling through," said Scheibel.

We waited until we saw the classic bubbles indicating the pancakes were ready to flip, but when we did, it became a sloppy mess in the pan.

"Didn't exactly work, but I don't know if that's because these ones ran over the top," Scheibel said, deciding to give it another try.

Once again, we heated the silicone mold, poured the batter to just the fill line, but this time, we also held down the mold to the pan hoping it would help contain the liquid. Kristy got the same results as the first time.

Kristy next followed the instructions for hash browns. The infomercial shows them being cooked in a pan, but the instruction booklet that comes with Flippin' Fantastic said to bake them. It didn't say how to cook them in the oven, so we used a cookie sheet. As instructed, Kristy packed the hash browns into each ring and added two teaspoons of oil.

After 20 minutes in the oven, it was time to flip. Kristy said the EZ flip grips were hot to the touch. When she tried to flip, the hash browns just fell through the openings. Nothing had browned or solidified in the oven enough to hold together to flip.

We tried eggs next.

Kristy cracked in only three eggs, deciding to use the middle three rings which appeared to be the most firmly planted in the skillet. But, as she cracked them in, "We can already see it's starting to leak through. It's underneath, I can see that already."

She kept cooking, hoping the eggs would harden enough to hold up to the flip. Kristy felt like it took a long time for the eggs to cook.

When she finally felt confident they were done enough, she found one of the flip grips to be hot to the touch leaving her unable to get a good handle on it. The eggs did not flip as advertised in the infomercial either. Her take on it was it possibly could have worked if the handle wasn't hot.

Unfortunately, breakfast at the Scheibel's was in the trash after testing out the Flippin' Fantastic. So does it really do that? Kristy says no.

"I just feel that it didn't lay flat, flat enough to be able to flip either the eggs, the hash browns, the pancakes," she said.

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