textures, and a recipe

I’m obsessed with making various neck thingies this week – cowls, scarves and shawls.

Mmmmmm.

But, since I don’t really have anything much more to show you, I thought I’d pop by with a recipe I’ve been making a bunch lately! It’s a great breakfast, and I’ve lightened it up considerably from its original recipe, so I thought I’d post it.

(I took this photo ages ago at my old apartment – sniff, there are lots of things I miss about that place.)

Dutch Baby Pancake

Ingredients
– 1-2 tbsp butter
– 4 eggs
– 1/2 cup flour
– 1/2 cup milk (I use lactose-free, 1%)
– cinnamon, nutmeg, a few drops of vanilla extract

Directions
Turn oven on to 400F. Put the butter in a cast iron skillet or glass pie pan and place it in the heating oven while you mix the rest of the ingredients.

Mix the eggs, flour, milk and seasonings together – I use a large glass measuring cup, and I find that the immersion blender (stick/hand blender) does a great job of incorporating the flour quickly and adding some air. Otherwise, use a standard blender, or just a bowl and a good whisk.

Once the butter has melted and foamed in the pan, pull the pan out of the oven, pour the batter in, then stick it back in the oven for about 20-25 minutes, or until it has puffed up around the edges and is nice and brown.
Sprinkle with icing sugar and serve with whatever you want – I use maple syrup and homemade strawberry jam!

A few notes: I think the batter puffs up the best with room temperature batter, but the reality is that sometimes I just don’t have time for that! Instead, I measure out out the eggs and milk the night before and put them in the fridge, and measure the flour and seasonings out into a bowl. That way in the morning I just have to turn on the oven, mix it all up and dump it in the pan.

And don’t worry if you get to about the 15 minute mark and it looks like it’s not puffed – it comes up really quickly at the end!

Nom. Perfect with a big cup of tea.