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Pretty (Dutch) Baby: Bake Some Delicious Imperfection

A blueprint oven pancake recipe & links to Ukrainian borscht - No. 46

Anne Byrn

Mar 1

As we watch the war unfold in Ukraine, the world is witnessing the strength of the Ukrainian people. At the end of my post today I share links to Ukrainian borscht recipes from my fellow Substack food writers. And I will be featuring a Ukrainian-inspired recipe here next Tuesday. Food connects us, and recipes tell our stories.

The rise and fall of our Dutch baby. Photo: Danielle Atkins.

DISCOVERING SOME DUTCH BABY PHOTOS LAST WEEK took me back to an August 2018 Skillet Love cookbook shoot when we baked a boatload of Dutch babies for the one perfect shot.

I caught up with food stylist Teresa Blackburn who had whizzed Dutch baby batter in her blender and poured countless batches in every iron skillet we could find. (Yes, she was still speaking to me!)

We remembered how the Dutch babies baked differently as if each had its own DNA. One puffed up in the center and formed a deep moat around the edges. You couldn’t forget it.

I told her I was writing about Dutch babies this week. She paused and said, “The first time I ate a Dutch baby, I was enchanted. But you know it’s not Dutch, don’t you?”

One of our Dutch babies baked up so much in the center that it resembled a wide-brimmed hat. We added blueberries and powdered sugar. Photo: Danielle Atkins.

Finding beauty in the flaws, and a Dutch baby isn’t Dutch

A Dutch baby is an oven pancake that inflates like a balloon as it bakes, something along the lines of a really large popover. But unlike a popover with its small pan that constricts it, the Dutch baby is baked in a wide skillet, so it bakes high around the edges but it does some wonky things in the center depending on the temperature of the batter, the oven, the day, the Dutch baby gods, and maybe even magic.

“They are one of those lovely things in cooking that you can’t control and just can’t worry about,” Teresa said. “And that is their surprise.”

As it turned out, the Dutch babies that did sink by the time the camera was ready, the ones that looked like a seismic shift had taken place and were rippled from rim to rim were more intriguing. The camera loved their dips and shadows.

And the hungry helpers in the kitchen didn’t care about appearances. They feasted on all the crispy, custardy discards.

Come to think about it, it was enchanting how the berries sank into the crevices and the powdered sugar hit the tops of the fallen crust like new snow.

But Dutch babies are thought to be German, with the word “Dutch” a corruption of “Deutch,” which is simply German for “German.” They’ve been made in home kitchens around the world and go by names like pfannkuchen, hootenannies, and Bismarcks, but they were popularized in Seattle at a restaurant called Manca’s Cafe in the early 1900s.

I found a 1944 Seattle Times newspaper column referring to Manca’s Dutch babies, although the restaurant would close in 1961 and is now at Starbuck’s. No doubt that Dutch babies became a part of our brunch rotation once they were baked in pancake restaurants across America, and then it was only a matter of time before we would pull out our iron skillets and bake them at home.

The real Dutch baby

A real Dutch baby named Wouter. Photo courtesy of Teresa Blackburn.

After Teresa Blackburn’s longtime beau, Wouter, was born in Amsterdam his mother didn’t bake “Dutch baby.” But he did learn to make pannenkoeken or thin apple pancakes, and he recreates these on the stovetop beginning with sliced and sautéed apples before he pours in a pancake-like batter, lets them cook until crispy and then flips them high into the air.

Crepes, pancakes, Wouter’s pannenkoeken, and our Dutch baby are all perfect for Shrove Tuesday, which is today. It’s what New Orleans calls “Mardi Gras,” translating from French to mean “Fat Tuesday,” the day before Lent begins when Christians have traditionally used up sugar and fat and all the other culinary temptations before they began a more spartan Lenten diet in the 40 days to Easter.

I used to fold all sorts of savory ingredients into a Dutch baby batter, but I’ve since learned it will never rise as high this way. You should just bake it plain and then serve those goodies spooned over the top. Photo: Danielle Atkins.

How to make as perfect a Dutch baby as possible

So tonight as pancakes are being flipped around the world, don’t be discouraged by everything I’ve just said about being out of control of the Dutch baby situation. There are things you can do to make one that is better and more beautiful:

Begin with the skillet. Use cast iron because it gets quite hot and retains the heat, baking the oven pancake evenly, from the bottom and around the sides, and it forces the batter upwards to high heights above the edges of the pan, which creates the golden brown drama.
Bake in a hot oven—425 degrees—and if some people advise a cold oven to start, that’s just making things more complicated than they need to be.
Blend. If you have a blender or immersion blender, use it. A food processor or hand mixer will do in a pinch. You want to bring air into the mixture so that when it gets in the oven it rises.
And as tempting as it will be to watch this metamorphosis unfolding, resist opening the oven door or you’ll let in cold air which can stop the rising. Just turn on the light in the oven and pull up chairs for everyone to watch.
When done, carefully grab the skillet and take it to the table because the baby will start deflating. It’s not as fast as the fall of a souffle, but you know it’s going to happen.

When it does, that’s where you see the imperfections, those sags and dips. Add a dusting of powdered sugar to a sweet Dutch baby, and it’s like a filter, making everything less literal and more beautiful.

Add toppings of fruit - berries of all hues! They’re much better on top than folded into the batter where they slow down the rise. Or go savory if you wish, forgoing sugar and vanilla. Spoon on sautéed wild mushrooms, asparagus tips, garlic, and spinach leaves. And if your baby starts to look like a one-dish meal, all the better. Put a big serving spoon on the table and let everyone help themselves.

Delicious, but no cover girl

In spite of our repeating this recipe over and over for the photo shoot and Teresa’s gorgeous styling, the Dutch baby lost the cover to Skillet Pizza.

I’m not sure how we thought something as precarious as a souffle would be a good idea for the cover of the book in the first place. Yet from baking so many, we learned how there’s this small window of time for the rise then the fall, so that’s when the camera needs to be ready or everyone needs to be at the table.

And we tasted how absolutely delicious a deflated Dutch baby can be. With a creamy, custardy center and those crunchy edges, you won’t shed a tear if it’s not picture-perfect. You’ll just have to bake another…

Do you have a favorite Dutch baby?

Dutch Baby Blueprint

This cross between a pancake and a popover is easier than it looks, and everything is probably already in your kitchen. Make sure the skillet is hot when the batter goes in. Baking at 425 degrees really pushes the Dutch baby up to a spectacular rise. Some recipes call for baking powder, but I find this makes the mixture heavy and prefer the lightness and simplicity of this recipe.

Serves 3 to 4

Prep: 10 to 15 minutes

Bake: 20 to 25 minutes

4 large eggs

1 cup whole milk

3 tablespoons sugar, divided use, if desired

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

1 cup unbleached flour

Pinch of salt

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

Garnish:

Fresh berries and confectioners’ sugar

Maple syrup

Place a rack in the center of the oven, and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Place a 12-inch cast iron skillet in the oven while the oven preheats.
Place the eggs in a blender or large mixing bowl, and blend to break up the yolks. Add the milk and combine. Sprinkle in 2 tablespoons of the sugar and the vanilla and lemon zest and combine. Add half of the flour, and combine, then add the other half of flour and the salt and blend well until smooth.
Remove the skillet from the oven and add the butter. Turn the heat to medium-high under the skillet until the butter foams and is hot but does not burn. Pour in the batter. Sprinkle the remaining sugar around the edges of the Dutch baby. Turn off the heat, and place the pan in the preheated oven.
Bake until the sides are browned and puffed up and the center begins to lightly brown, about 20 to 25 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven, garnish with fresh blueberries, a dusting of confectioners’ sugar, and maple syrup, if desired.

The Ukrainian flag. Photo: Getty Images.

Simmer and bake up some comfort for Ukraine

Two Substack writers, Jolene Handy of Time Travel Kitchen and Kate McDermott have been cooking Borscht to honor Ukraine in their newsletters. Jolene lives and writes in Chicago, where our country’s second largest Ukrainian-American community lives. Kate points out that 50,000 Ukrainian-Americans live in Washington State. Next Tuesday, I’ll be revisiting a very special Ukrainian poppyseed cake and sharing the significance of poppyseeds in American cooking and baking.

This Thursday for paid subscribers:

Fish Cakes!!! How turning leftover grilled salmon into fish cakes became not only my daughters’ favorite recipe, but they begged me to cook salmon so we’d have fish cakes the next night. And they freeze well, too!

There are many benefits of going paid—the growing recipe archives, knowing what’s coming each week, open threads for discussion, a chance to win a new cookbook, and hearing from me with family favorites and quick ideas on Thursdays!

Have a great week!

Anne

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Delicious Cakes

Tuesday, March 1, 2022