Fiftylandia: By Request

HB and I were talking about my blog.

He reads it when I remind him I have a blog. He can never remember the name of it, but this is the same person who can't remember my gmail address which is my firstnamelastname@ gmaildotcom.

He suggested that I should be a food blogger. I protested! I don't want to do a food blog. This is my musings and rants space! This is where I observe life and share heart-warming stories!

He thought that since I love to cook, am a passably good cook, do food for a living and have shelves of cookbooks and files of recipes, perhaps it might not be out of the realm of possibility that I include recipes on my blog.

But I don't want to futz with taking pictures! I don't want to be constrained by recipes! Exact measures! Testing and testing! Wasting food! It's all too much! I just want to say, "this was yummy-make it!"

Then I thought about it. I do have a lot of great recipes I'd love to share. I can take reasonably non-nauseating photos if pressed. I can live within the constraints of measurements and I'm sure all 3 of you that read this blog will know what I mean when I say a dash of this or a handful of that. Right?

Well, since there's no time like the present, I present:

Caramel Apple Spiced Dutch Baby Pancake.

Last weekend a FB friend posted photos of her Dutch Baby pancake and I realized I hadn't made one of those in ages and it looked delicious. So this morning, I got up and got to work. Here's the result.

(And I promise to figure out how to do printable recipes at some point. In the meantime, if you want this, copy and paste it to a Word doc and print it. Easy, right!?)

Dutch Baby Pancake is also known as Pannekoeken. It's a baked egg pancake, simply made with flour, eggs, vanilla and milk. Of course, it can only get better from there, as it's a beautiful foundation for other ingredients; pears, apples, blueberries, plain with fresh berries...you name it. I had apples in the fridge so it was an easy decision to make Caramel Apple Spice. There's a restaurant here in town named Pannekoeken and when you order one, the server comes running to your table with it singing "Pannekoeken! Pannekoeken!" so it arrives hot, pre-deflation and in all it's delicious glory.

Caramel Apple Spiced Dutch Baby Pancake
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Prep-10 minutes, Bake 15-20 minutes.
Makes 6 servings.

4 T butter
1/4 c. packed light brown sugar
2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. freshly grated nutmeg
2 medium apples (firm baking apples) peeled and sliced.

In a cast-iron or oven-safe 8" skillet, melt the butter and stir in the brown sugar and spices. Melt and add the apples. On medium heat saute the apples, stirring to coat and soften about 5 minutes. Turn heat to very low or warm and prepare the batter:

4 Eggs
1 C Flour
1 C. Milk
1 t. Vanilla

In a blender, break the eggs, sprinkle in the flour, add the milk and vanilla and a dash of salt. Blend on high, scraping the sides of the blender cup to incorporate all the flour, about 1 minutes. It will be frothy.

Pour the egg batter over the sauteed apples-do not stir. Immediately put in the center of a preheated 450 degree oven and set the timer for 14 minutes. Do not open oven to peek!

At 14 minutes, check the Dutch Baby. It will have climbed up the sides and will be puffy in the center. It should be just set. If the eggs are still shiny or look wet, give the pancake one more minute.

Remove from oven and let set 2 minutes before cutting. It will settle.
Cut with a sharp knife into 6 wedges. Use a spatula to remove--it may stick a little if your pan was not well seasoned or isn't non-stick. A messy Dutch Baby is still a delicious Dutch Baby!

Serve with either a sprinkle of powdered sugar or a drizzle of maple syrup and a side of peppered bacon or spicy pork sausage. MMM!
Enjoy!