The Dutch Baby, like popovers, are pure comfort food. Perfect for breakfast, lunch or dinner, they served up sweet or savory in seconds.

My wife Stella, so not her real name, announced one evening, “We’re going to have a Dutch Baby.” Wait, what?!?  “Oh, don’t panic, you’ll see what I mean in the morning.” That was my introduction to what I call the “skillet popover.”  They’re wonderfully eggy and can be topped to perfection with just about anything and don’t take nine-months to prepare.

The Dutch Baby is a pancake and known by many names, the Bismarck, the Dutch Puff, the Dutch Pancake and the German pancake to name a few.  Considered by those in the know to be a descendent of the German apfelpfannkuchen (apfel–apple, pfanne–pan, kuchen–cake) or apple pancake, the recipe made it’s US cookbook debut in, Victor Hirtzler’s, Hotel St. Francis Cooked, published in 1919.  Wonderfully preserved on the Library of Congress’s Internet archive, you can read the original at, https://archive.org/details/hotelstfrancisco00hirtiala.

An online search also reveals lots of recipes with some slight variations. The recipe we like best is kitchen tested, performs well, tastes great, and when I serve this dish to breakfast guests, makes me look much more sophisticated than I actually am. Best of all it’s easy.  We do recommend a cast iron skillet but any oven friendly skillet will do.

Serve them sweet with fruit and powdered sugar or savory, with bacon and hash brown potatoes, or grilled veggies and cheese.  Use your imagination.

Enjoy!

Prep Time: 5:00 minutes / Cook Time: 20:00 minutes

Tools You’ll Need

10” cast iron skillet or oven safe skillet

Blender

Spatula

Ingredients:
3 eggs

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

¾ cup flour

¾ cup milk

1 tablespoon sugar

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon vanilla

1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)

Optional sweet topping ideas:

Nutella and banana

Sautéed apples with drizzled chocolate

Peaches and cream

Blueberries, strawberries, pecans, maple granola

Powdered sugar, honey, maple syrup

Optional savory topping ideas:

Smoked ham with fried eggs

Smoked salmon with Camembert

Italian sausage, sauté green peppers

Sautéed vegetables topped with Parmesan

Fried eggs, avocado, and shaved ham

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and place oven rack in the middle of the oven.

Many recipes call for ingredients to be at room temperature, so the first thing we do is to measure out the milk and put the eggs in warm water for about 5 minutes.

Add the butter to the skillet and place it in the oven to melt the butter.  Don’t let the butter brown or burn.

Crack the eggs into the blender and blend on medium-high for about 5 seconds until they are frothy.

Add the flour, milk, sugar, salt and vanilla…

…and blend on low speed to combine and then, blend on medium-high for about 5 seconds.  Optional: Add lemon zest and blend low speed until combined –  just a couple of seconds.

Carefully remove the skillet swirling the melted butter to coat the bottom and side of the pan then, pour the batter into the skillet and return it to the oven.

Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are golden brown and puffed above the side of the skillet. Turn off the oven and let the skillet sit there for 5 minutes to set the pancake.

Add toppings of your choice and enjoy!

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