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
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.
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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