It’s Wednesday and that means for the month of September you’ll be seeing my adventures in the world of As Seen on TV. I purchased a Rollie a couple of months ago and you can meet and learn all about him here.

I decided to break in my Rollie by making one of the things suggested in their enclosed recipe booklet: the sausage pancake. A delectable sausage encased in perfectly cooked pancake using vertical cooking technology.

I started out with Tofurky sausage links and a box of Bisquick. I quickly whipped up a vegan version of the pancake recipe on the back of the Bisquick box. Then I skewered one of the Tofurky links and placed it in the Rollie.

Once in, you simply pour in some pancake batter and wait for the magic to happen. It’s a bit difficult to get a good pour into the vertical cooking chamber with the skewer coming out, but I wiped away the excess and then waited and watched. Within a couple of minutes the batter began to rise as promised in the Rollie video.

Unfortunately my batter was rising right out of the vertical cooking chamber, which meant it was not going to cook. I quickly scooped out what I could with a spoon. One of the keys to a successful Rollie is to not overfill the vertical cooking chamber. The cookbook recommends using 1/4 cup of batter, and though that seems slight, when combined with the volume of the sausage it will indeed be enough.

The pancake sausage did not rise out of the Rollie as seen on tv, so I set a timer for roughly 8 minutes and then pulled it out when it seemed ready. Ta-da!

A lightly browned pancake sausage rollie emerged intact. I ate it with a touch of maple syrup for dipping. Was this the best breakfast I have ever eaten? It was not. But I think some adjustments to the basic Bisquick batter would take it up a notch or two. I would use more spray oil next time, and leave it in for a bit longer to try get a better brown on the pancake exterior. But I am happy to have my first Rollie success and look forward to next week’s experiment.