Second Chances - Dutch Baby Pancakes

Everything deserves a second chance - well almost everything and this morning's breakfast was no exception. You see, the big guy's Mom and Dad treated us to dinner out last night, so I figured I'd post something from yesterday's breakfast instead of taking pictures at the restaurant. Have you ever heard of a German Pancake aka Dutch Baby?

Dutch Baby's are a puffed pancake with a batter much like yorkshire pudding. Baked in the oven in a single hot pan, the pancake puffs up like a souffle' in the oven and collapses just as quickly when it comes out, making room for powdered sugar, lemon and in our case gorgeous little wild blueberries courtesy of Trader Joe's freezer. Oh, the other thing - taking pictures is a challenge. Actually, if you want to know the truth, making the darn thing's a challenge but if you know me at all, you know I'm not likely to back down from any kind of a kitchen challenge. Point in fact - Sunday morning's version.

I whizzed the batter for "Take Number One" up in the blender - 3 eggs, 3/4 cup milk, 3/4 cup all purpose flour and a dash of salt. One of the tricks to making it - the eggs and milk must be at room temperature, and since I didn't plan for that, I just measured the milk into a cup, cracked the eggs and newked them together for 19 seconds which warmed everything up just fine. After I whipped everything up, I melted butter into the bottom of a 9" cast iron skillet that had been warmed in a 450 oven then poured the batter in, shut the door and set the timer for 11 minutes. The result...well you can see. It tasted fine, but it rose unevenly - in fact, I thought the darn thing was going to blow the door right off the oven! Now that would be a brilliant story to tell the Maytag repairman, wouldn't it?

The big guy suggested we make an equipment change and try again this morning. Oh darn! Dutch Baby pancakes with powdered sugar, lemon and wild blueberries two mornings in a row. Such hardship! This time I brought the eggs and milk to room temperature, beat it with a whisk, then added the flour and a dash of salt, mixed it just until combined and poured the batter over butter into a screaming hot dutch oven with nice high sides for it to climb. After its 11 minutes of fame in a 450 oven ...drum roll please ... voila - "Take Number Two".

Perfect! Light, crisp on the outside, perfectly concave in the center to hold bunches of powdered sugar, blueberries and lemon, along with some maple sausage ooohhh, it was absolutely perfectly delicious! So what made this one work when the other one didn't...according to the big guy - ya' just gotta' have the right equipment. His quiet, very droll comment as he's enjoying breakfast- "hon, you can use a hammer to break a board apart, or a saw. The hammer will get the job done but the saw works better." Mmmm!

Comments

[Nanan]

Lovely! And such nice comments from someone who just got fed such nice food - ehh???? Better watch that - big guy hehehehehe!!!! But when you speak the truth - all is forgiven - no? Gotta love a man with a sense of humor in the morning!!!

[June]

Lea - he's just full of good information, isn't he and ALWAYS in a good mood. How lucky am I?

[Mags]

LOLOL.... I'm just going to say that "he's full of it" and let you decide what exactly it is that's he's full of.

I'm off to help birth my first grandchild. Hold down the internet while I'm gone and I'll hopefully be posting on Wednesday night with a picture of the little guy.

[June]

Mags - I'm singing happy birthday to Gavin right now! Can't wait to see the little guy. (PS - how come you know the big guy so well???)