Recipe Week #1: Dutch Baby

My last morning in Portland, before my 10-hour flight back to Amsterdam, Mom made me our favorite childhood weekend treat - the appropriately named "Dutch Baby". 

Dutch Baby is one of those family traditions that seems so fixed and enduring, you are shocked as an adult to find out that no one else knows what the heck you're talking about. But I think Mom described Dutch Baby aptly when she compared it to "a giant popover" (at least, for those of you who know what a popover is).

So here's Mom's recipe (in her words), modified from Sunset Magazine (1977). This is best made in a cast-iron skillet; it rises like a souffle, but falls just as quickly. You cut it up like a pie and top it with butter, powdered sugar and lemon (in that order).

1/4 cup butter
3 eggs
3/4 cup flour
3/4 cup milk
Powdered sugar
Lemon slices

Have pan and ingredients at hand before you begin. Heat the oven to 425 degrees. Make sure everyone will be available when you take the pancake out of the oven in about 30 minutes.

Put the butter in the pan and set it into the oven to melt while you quickly mix the batter. 

Put the eggs into a blender or food processor and whirl for a minute or so to blend. Add milk and flour and beat another 30 seconds.

You can also make this with a rotary beater by beating the eggs until light and then gradually beating in the milk, then the flour.

Remove the pan from the oven and pour the batter into the hot melted butter. Return to oven and bake until puffy — 20 to 25 minutes.

Note: If the pancake doesn’t creep up the sides of the pan, the pan wasn’t hot enough when you added the batter. It’s somewhat of a juggling act to get the pan hot enough without browning the butter. Even if the pancake doesn’t rise, it will still be delicious.

And for the record, I have not seen Dutch Baby on any of the cafe menus here in the Hague.