Every Saturday morning as a kid, my older sister and I would tiptoe downstairs and surreptitiously meet in the kitchen. As the blue light of dawn warmed into day, we’d discuss ratios and quantities, our voices lowered so as not to wake our parents.We were on a quest to make the perfect pancake.We were chasing our white stag: a pancake we had made once at day camp. But with no understanding of recipe science, we could not comprehend what was going wrong each week as we tried to recapture the magic of that one now-mythological pancake.Over time our “recipe” had warped into an equal mix of flour, sugar, and milk, a grotesque formula that invariably produced pale, gummy, and sickly sweet pancakes. Even so, we’d smother them in berry compote and maple syrup and present them to our grimacing parents, who’d stomach small bites.Pancake mix soon started to appear in the pantry.We were quick converts. With pancake mix, there’s no need to consider proportions, rising agents, or protein structure. Even now, though I make pancakes from scratch regularly (I’ve retired our Frankensteinian recipe), I always keep a box of pancake mix in the cupboard. When you wake up with a craving but don’t have the time, energy, or ingredients to make pancakes from scratch, a premade mix is clutch.For this guide, I tested 16 popular pancake mixes with several of my colleagues, focusing on classic and buttermilk versions. After working our way through a lot of unremarkable flapjacks, we found four boxes that reliably serve up scrumptious golden pancakes, so the warm smell of butter and syrup can fill the house with anticipation, not dread.