A Year of Mindful Eating: Food stories that take you home: Dutch Baby

 

Discovering Dutch baby pancakes has had the biggest impact on my breakfasts since I discovered egg hoppers in Sri Lanka. Breakfast can be pedestrian. When I was a kid, cereal with milk and sugar was standard. On a good day we might slice a banana to add to the bowl. Once I began school, the most important meal of the day usually consisted of two slices of vegemite toast and a cup of tea. Too often my mother delivered these to my bedroom in a desperate attempt to wake me from the dead.

As a kid, I was such a heavy sleeper I could wake up, eat the toast, drink the tea, and go back to sleep with no memory of any of it. One time, brat that I was, I yelled at my mother, “How can I go to school without breakfast?” She pointed at the empty cup and crumb covered plate on my bedside table. All I could do was grimace, get dressed and run off to school.

Yes, we had pancakes, but they were the delicate, lacey dessert, served with lemon and sugar or fruit. We do have drop scones, known as pikelets. Made with self-rising flour, milk, egg, a little sugar and butter, they’re literally dropped into the pan, cooked on one side until bubbles form all over the surface and then they’re flipped. American readers are thinking, “pancake,” but these are served at afternoon tea, not at breakfast. Mum would whip up a batch if someone dropped in unexpectedly, and by some miracle she had none of her famous cakes or slices on hand. Just thinking about them makes me hungry.

Stuck with close to half a pound of “cheek” bacon from my CSA meat share (what is cheek bacon?), I racked my brain for ways to use this mostly-fat-with-a-sprinkling-of-bacon meat lump. Quiche Lorraine came to mind, but I wasn’t in a mood for making pastry. Egg and bacon pie? Ditto.

What to do? Then I happened on a Melissa Clark recipe for Dutch Baby with Bacon and Runny Camembert. Bacon? Camembert? Say no more, I was hooked. Then last week, another CSA inspired dilemma arose. As well as my vegetable and meat share, I get a fruit share. Last week it was nectarines and yellow peaches. Wonderful, but I hadn’t got through the apples I got the week before. Not to mention the raspberries I used to make the yoyos from last week’s post, or the blueberries I bought, just because. What to do? Make a huge fruit Dutch Boy for brunch, of course!

Here’s the thing about Dutch boys. They are simple to make, and impressive to serve. This is Sunday brunch when the kids bring their new squeeze to meet you, food. Or pandemic lockdown pick me up brunch. They’re cheap to make, dramatic, and turn tired old use it up food into a delicious, light as a feather, gourmet breakfast.

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Dutch baby with Fruit from Ed Kimber’s “One Tin Bakes,” via Becky Krystal at The Washington Post (August 26, 2020)

Note: I made this for myself, so simply cut the ingredients in half. It was so yummy I wish I made the full recipe.

Note: this recipe uses US measure, so the grams and milliliters are less than the original British incarnation.
Ingredients:
4 large eggs
2 tablespoons sugar
Scant 1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
1 cup (240 milliliters) whole or reduced-fat milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 tablespoons (28 grams) unsalted butter
10 1/2 ounces (300 grams) fresh fruit of your choice, such as mixed berries, sliced peaches or diced apple (I used all of the above)
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

Method

1. Position a baking rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees. Place an empty 9-inch-by-13-inch pan on the rack while you prepare the batter.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar for 30 seconds, until the sugar dissolves, then add the flour, milk, vanilla and salt, whisking to form a smooth, thin batter. Set aside for 20 minutes while the oven heats up.
3. Carefully remove the hot pan from the oven and add the butter, swirling the pan until it melts and coats the bottom. Pour in the batter, sprinkle the fruit on top and bake for about 20 minutes, or until puffed and golden. The pancake will begin to deflate almost as soon as it comes out of the oven, but will largely retain its puffy edges.
4. Dust the pancake with the confectioners’ sugar and serve immediately.

 

Tags: cookingwithkids, family, Food, Food Cooking Home cooking coronavirus, food family lockdown cooking cookingwithkids kidsathome, Home cooking, kidsathome, seasonalfood