Dutch baby pancake

 What is a Dutch baby pancake?

Dutch baby pancakes are basically puffed up pancakes cooked in the oven in a skillet/frying pan or sometimes a baking dish. They also go by a few other names including a German pancake and a Dutch puff.

If the names have you confused on their origin, that's no surprise. But in fact "Dutch" is the one that's wrong. Apparently an American restaurant serving them corrupted the word "Deutsch" in their menu (which is "German" in German). While generally agreed to be German in origin, the Dutch name has stuck.

These pancakes are a bit like a large popover or Yorkshire pudding. You cook then in a similar way, adding the batter to a hot cooking vessel with hot fat in it.

These are generally cooked in a skillet, though, rather than muffin/popover tins, and you use butter rather than oil or drippings. How you serve them is also generally a little different - these are generally sweet (though they can be savory, too).

This version is, as you might expect, sweet and has such a wonderful flavor. You can, of course, add other toppings but the cherry compote complements the chocolate flavor perfectly and is so, so good.

 

Making cherry compote

 

The cherry compote might sound fancy but it's really easy to make. It's basically a chunky sauce, similar to a pie filling but maybe a little less thick sauce and more fruity.

It doesn't take long to make and you can cook it up as the pancake cooks. You could also make it ahead of time if you prefer. Just store it in an airtight container in the fridge - it will keep up to a week. I would highly recommend making extra, too, as it's so tasty and would be great on top of a cheesecake, over ice cream and with a plain cake.

You can use frozen cherries for this (which are pitted) but it's easy enough to pit fresh and they would be my preference. You can use a cherry pitter, or else simply cut them in half around the middle, twist and then remove the stone. I usually cut the halves once more to give quarter pieces which feels a nice size.

You add a little lemon juice, as with jams, in part for flavor and also for a little pectin to help the mixture thicken. But you don't cook this as long as a jam and can either leave it with more of a syrup, or as here, use a little corn starch (corn flour) to thicken the liquid a bit.

Converting the pancake to chocolate-flavored

The basic ingredients for the pancake are simply egg, flour and milk then you add the butter directly to the skillet. To change this into a chocolate version, you essentially just switch out some of the flour for cocoa powder.

I have, however, made a couple of slight amends to my go-to plain version as well. First, I added a little more sugar as cocoa powder can be a little more bitter. 

Second, I used a bit more butter to cook the pancake in. This is for a couple reasons: first, the butter helps the batter to rise and while I'm not positive, I think cocoa powder does the opposite so it helps balance this out. 

 

 

For cherry compote

• 5 oz cherries fresh or frozen, defrosted)
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp water plus additional 1tsp, see directions
• ½ tbsp lemon juice (fresh)
• ½ tsp corn starch corn flour

For pancake

• 1 egg
• 3 tbsp all purpose flour plain flour
• 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder sifted to help avoid lumps
• ¼ cup milk
• 1 tbsp sugar
• 1 pinch salt (optional)
• 1 tbsp butter

To serve

• 2 tbsp mascarpone can also use cream or Greek-style yogurt

Instructions

To make compote

• Either as you heat the oven (see below) or if making ahead, first pit the cherries - you can use a pitter but I find it just as easy to cut with a knife around the middle, twist to split open then remove the stone. Cut the cherries into quarters and place in a small saucepan with the sugar, water and lemon juice.
• Place the saucepan on the stove on a medium heat and bring to a simmer. Reduce the heat slightly and simmer for around 5 - 10 minutes until the cherries are relatively soft, but still hold their shape.
• Mix the cornstarch with 1 teaspoon water to form a smooth slurry. Gradually add a little at a time to the cherry mixture and stir constantly to incorporate it. It will start to thicken - once it reaches the thickness you want, stop adding the cornstarch mixture and remove from the heat.

To make pancake and to serve

• Preheat oven to 400F/200C. Put an 8in/20cm cast iron or non stick skillet/frying pan in the oven to heat up as the oven heats.
• Use a blender or whisk together the pancake ingredients (egg, flour, cocoa powder, milk, sugar and salt - note NOT the butter) until smooth. Leave the mixture to sit for a few minutes and you may find you get little pockets of cocoa powder rise to the top (as in photo above) - use a spatula to stir and smooth as many of these lumps as you can (you can press against the side of the bowl) to make a smoother batter.
• Once the oven has reached temperature, add the butter to the skillet. Put the skillet back in the oven to let the butter melt and become foamy. You should start to smell the butter become slightly nutty.
• Once the butter has melted and is bubbly and starting to brown very slightly, pour the pancake batter into the middle of the pan. Immediately put the pan back in the oven and leave to bake for approx 16-18 minutes until the pancake has puffed up around the edges (and often in the middle a bit too). The batter should look dry, other than where the butter is.
• Don't worry, the pancake will likely deflate a little almost immediately, and may have butter on top when you take it out the oven - this will soak in to the pancake to keep it moist. Top the pancake with the mascarpone then the cherry compote. You may not need all. If you like, add a few shavings of chocolate on top before serving warm.

Notes

This recipe is for one fairly generous individual serving using an 8in/20cm skillet/frying pan that you can scale up as needed. If, for example, you double the recipe you can make two equal sized pancakes, or one larger pancake - I'd suggest using a 11 - 12in/28-30cm skillet. If doubling, you can simply double everything, but you can also add an extra egg if you like (i.e. 3 eggs along with 6tbsp flour, 2tbsp cocoa powder etc). This should help the batter rise a little more, though it will still work well as 2 eggs.

  

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