A Recipe for Winter: Apple & Spice Dutch Baby Pancake

Dutch baby pancakes, puffy and golden brown, are my go-to dish for wholesome and nourishing breakfasts. At night, when I’ve tucked my son into his cotton quilts and woolen blankets, I ask him what he wants to eat for the next morning’s breakfast. So many dishes, properly prepared, need time – soaked oatmeal porridge, baked oatmeal or buttermilk biscuits, for instance. And while eggs are a household favorite, more often than not, “PANCAKES!” comes his reply. Like most moms, I don’t have a lot of time in the mornings and as much as I love food and cooking, the painstaking process of pouring, flipping and turning every single pancake makes me shudder. I get bored, check my email and burn half the batch of pancakes in the process. It’s not a pretty sight, and we’re left with a mountain of dirty dishes and batter-splattered counter-tops as a result.

So when he asks for pancakes, I negotiate. “How about a Dutch baby?” I ask. He acquiesces and we’re both satisfied.

Dutch baby pancakes are sinfully easy to prepare. In their simplest form, you can mix a quick batter, pour it into a skillet and throw it into the oven for a half-hour to forty-five minutes. Me? I like to complicate things, if only slightly – preferring instead to fry some fruit and pour the batter over the fruit. I use less sugar that way, and add a little variety to the meal.

While regular pancakes are primarily composed of flour and a sweetener with eggs used as a binder; a Dutch baby is primarily composed of eggs and milk with a bit of flour and sugar included. So while the ingredients are more or less the same, the proportions are different. In my family, we tend to err in favor of the inclusion of fats and protein – like that provided by farm fresh eggs which are extraordinarily rich fat-soluble vitamins E, D and A as well as beta carotene; moreover, farm-fresh eggs offer a favorable fatty acid ratio.