Mommy Cooks

German Pancakes

The other day we made a German pancake for lunch -- also called Dutch baby pancake, "Dutch" probably being a corruption of "Deutsch".  It's a cross between a Yorkshire pudding and an omelet made with a bit of flour -- it's not like the usual cakey pancakes, but instead rather dense and eggy.  Laura said, "It looks really weird, but it tastes great!"

Regardless of its origin, it's very tasty and easy to prepare.  This version was printed in the Orange County Register a while back, and touted as a lookalike for the German Pancakes served at the Original Pancake House -- we've made them a number of times since, and it's rapidly becoming a family favorite.  I would never have thought of mixing maple syrup and lemon wedges, but it's absolutely delicious.

It swells up rather alarmingly in the oven, then when you take it out it falls faster than you can say "ausgezeichnet" -- faster than I can say it, at any rate.  Quite fun.

German Pancakes

3 large eggs
1/3 cup whole milk
1/3 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon butter, melted
powdered sugar, for garnish
maple syrup and lemon wedges, if desired

Preheat oven to 475° F.

In a medium bowl, beat the eggs with an electric mixer, or whisk by hand.  Mix in the milk, cream, sugar, salt, and vanilla, until the sugar is dissolved.  Sift in the flour and mix until smooth.  Let the batter stand about 10 minutes.

Coat the bottom of a 9- or 10-inch oven safe skillet with the melted butter.  Pour the batter into this pan, and bake 15 minutes or until golden brown on top and dark around the edges.  The pancake will rise dramatically during baking.

Remove the pan from the oven and let cool about 1 minute; it will collapse as it cools.  Loosen the edges of the pancake with a spatula, then slide it from the pan onto a plate.  Dust with powdered sugar. 

Serve promptly, with maple syrup and lemon wedges.

Makes 2 to 4 servings.  Preparation time, 15 minutes; total time, 30 minutes.

Flaxseed Pancakes

The only thing better than pancakes is pancakes with syrup -- we've discovered a new one that is rapidly becoming a favorite, the blueberry syrup in Santini Food's Organic Syrup line.  Mmm.

The flaxseed meal in these pancakes not only gives you a bit of that Omega-3 goodness, but imparts a lovely nutty flavor.  This recipe makes pancakes that are tall and fluffy -- add another splash or two of milk for thinner cakes.  (If you like a thicker pancake, lower the heat under the pan, so that they will cook through without scorching.)  I cook them in a well-seasoned cast-iron pan for the extra iron, too, which makes them rather virtuously healthy as well as delicious.

Flaxseed Pancakes

1 cup flour
1/3 cup wheat germ or wheat bran
2 tablespoons brown sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons crushed flaxseed
1 egg
1 cup milk

Heat a large skillet over medium heat.

Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl, and mix well, adding a bit more milk if the batter seems too thick.  Lightly oil or butter the skillet for the first batch only. 

Pour about 1/4 cup of batter onto the skillet for each cake.  Fry the cakes until they are lightly bubbly and lose their glossiness, and are lightly browned on the bottoms.  Turn carefully and brown on the other side.

Serve hot with butter and syrup, jam, or a sprinkling of brown sugar.

Makes 8 to 10 4-inch pancakes.  Active work time, about 20 minutes.

Happy Mother's Day

Julia's class made these little presents for Mother's Day -- cinnamon sugar to sprinkle on toast.  They made the papers on the top of the jars themselves, too, out of the papers that separate foil muffin cups, painted with colored dye dripped from eye-droppers -- messy and fun.

Julia was delighted to have cinnamon toast for breakfast the next day, too!

Cinnamon Toast

1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons white sugar
bread
butter

Mix together the cinnamon and sugar.

Toast and butter the bread, and sprinkle with about 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon sugar per slice.

Store the remaining cinnamon sugar at room temperature in an airtight container; it will keep indefinitely, if you can wait that long.

Makes enough for about 40 servings of cinnamon toast.  Preparation time, about 2 minutes for the cinnamon sugar.

Homemade Granola

Homemade granola has it all over the boxed stuff.  Fresh ingredients in your favorite combinations, a yummy chewiness you can't get when it's been sitting on the shelf for months, that wonderful smell in the kitchen as it bakes -- can't beat that!

I was so busy trying to get Julia to sit still while I took this photo that I didn't notice until some minutes later that she was snitching the blueberries from the top.  Laura, the older of the two, doesn't care much for granola, Honey-Nut Cheerios or toast being her current breakfasts of choice, but Julia will often ask for granola.  The dried-fruit versions make it especially tempting.

(The liquids together will amount to 3/4 cup.  If your measuring cup doesn't give you the ounces, just measure about equal amounts of oil and honey to make 3/4 cup.)

Homemade Granola

6 cups old-fashioned oats
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds
1/2 cup lightly packed light brown sugar
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 oz. cooking oil
3 oz. honey
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 oz. dried Rainier cherries

Preheat oven to 300 deg. F.  In a large bowl, mix together the oats, almonds, brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon.  Measure the oil and honey into a glass measuring cup, and warm in the microwave for about 1 minute (the liquids will coat the oats and nuts more efficiently when warmed).  Add the vanilla to the oil and honey, and pour over the oat mixture.  Mix well.

Spread the granola in a 15x10x1-inch baking dish.  Bake 20 to 40 minutes, stirring carefully every 10 minutes, until nicely browned.  (Baking time will depend on whether you like your granola moist and merely tanned, as I do, or crunchy and well-toasted.)  Transfer the dish to a rack, and cool completely.  Stir in the dried cherries.

Store the granola in an airtight container or bag at room temperature, for up to 1 week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

Makes about 8 1-cup servings.  Active work time, about 5 minutes; total preparation time, 25 to 45 minutes.

Variations are as limitless as your imagination.  I like it with pecans and no fruit.  Instead of the almonds and cherries, try pecan pieces and 1 cup dried blueberries.  Maple syrup works well instead of honey, but doesn't impart as much maple flavor as you might think, so if you want a nice maple-walnut granola, add some maple flavoring.