Nana’s Kitchen: Dutch Baby

Some maple syrup and fruit. Delicious! Nana’s Kitchen photo.

Greetings, home cooks, welcome to Nana’s Kitchen,

Christmas is getting closer. The plans of family and friends continues. I was thinking of the dinners being planned but then what about breakfast? When we were kids we got up early to see what Santa had left. Sometimes my mother would fix pancakes for breakfast. The wait to dinner could be a little while. Something the children might enjoy is a pancake called a Dutch Baby. Easy to fix it is a large, baked, puffy pancake.

This pancake has a variety of names. German pancake, a Bismarck, a Dutch puff, or a hootenanny. The pancake mentioned here came into being in the early 1900’s at the Manca’s Cafe, Seattle, Washington. It is derived from a German pancake. Apparently the owners daughter could not pronounce the German “Deutsch” and “Dutch” Baby born as the story goes. Manca’s Cafe claimed they owned the trademark for the Dutch babies in 1942. It was originally served as 3 small pancakes with lemon juice and powdered sugar.

Dutch Baby

Ingredients:
3 large eggs
3/4th cup whole milk
3/4th cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3-4 tablespoon butter

You will need an oven proof skillet, preferably a 10-12 inch cast iron, if you have it. The batter can be well whisked to combine or use a blender, which makes this easy.

Place skillet with butter in the pre-heated oven to get hot and butter to melt.
Place eggs in blender and blend until frothy. 30 seconds or so.
Add to blender milk, flour, and vanilla. Combine with eggs.
The batter is ready.

CAREFULLY remove skillet from oven with melted butter. It is hot! Swirl butter around skillet.
Pour batter into center of skillet and return to the oven to bake, immediately.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Remove from oven.
Serve immediately. Enjoy!!

Hints:
There is no leavening agent in this batter.
A good hot skillet will make the puff better. At least 10 min pre heat.
The skillet can be placed in the oven and upon removal from oven add butter to melt. Then add batter.
The puff will deflate some after a few minutes from the oven.
Serve hot.
Any topping can be added to the pancake as your heart desires. Fruit, zest of lemon, syrup of any preference, powdered sugar, whip topping. The choices are endless.
This pancake is eggy in its flavor. Very tasty.
Did not add salt to the recipe due to the salt in the butter. But you could add a pinch if you wanted.
I used some rich French butter left over for melting. Yummy.

It is my wish that each of you have a very Merry Christmas.
May everyone have peace and blessings at this time of year.