Our Favorite Breakfast, the Dutch Baby.

Today I am posting a recipe that is very unoriginal, but it delicious and tried and true. I do not post this recipe pretending that it is some new, innovative, and trendy breakfast food because it is not. The recipe was new to me seven years ago when I married into a family that loves Dutch Babies, the fluffier the better. 

I hate pancakes. The texture, the syrup, the whole combination. I do enjoy waffles which I suppose is odd since the batter used to make waffles and pancakes is practically identical. I probably shouldn't even get started on odd breakfast preferences considering I love to top French Toast with butter and salt and pepper, keep that syrup far away from my French Toast! So in the way of hot breakfast foods that we like prepared the same way, that leaves little my husband and I both love. The Dutch Baby however, is something that we can both agree upon. 

I am mostly posting this recipe because it represents a current phase or era in our household. My husband works from home a few days a week, and back when we only had one kid and it was a lot easier to spend a few hours slaving away over a huge batch of freezer waffles (the recipe we always used is here). Spending that much time cooking breakfast while my hungry family waits isn't as easy now, and besides that my toddler broke our waffle maker. So really the key for us is a tasty breakfast that doesn't take long to cook and is not very involved. Enter the Dutch Baby. It is our go to breakfast, occasional lunch, and even sometimes dinner. It is a recipe that we always have ingredients on hand for, it takes five minutes to whip together and 25 minutes to bake.  

Having already mentioned the unoriginality of this recipe as a breakfast idea, here is a little bit of the history behind this breakfast. We are big fans of Sunset Magazine in our home, and a few years ago they featured this brief little history on Dutch Babies. "Sure, it was born in Europe, but the West adopted this baby almost a century ago. In the early 1900s, Victor Manca, owner of a Seattle restaurant . . . put the German pfannkuchen on his menu. Instead of making one giant cake, though, he baked dainty little ones--hence, Dutch (as in "Deutsch," for German) Babies." 

So unoriginal but tried and true, we love the Dutch Baby! 

I have tried several types of pans over the years, with the best results coming from a well-greased cast iron skillet. Be sure to follow the pan specifications, if you try to use a pan too small the Dutch Baby will end up more dense and not as fluffy. Pans should bee shallow, no more than 3 inches deep.

We serve ours with a sprinkling of lemon juice and powdered sugar but some people use fruit, honey, nutmeg, syrup, or honey. 

Dutch Baby Recipe 

Pan Size	Butter	Eggs	Milk and Flour
2-3 qts.	¼ cup	3	¾ cup each
3-4 qts.	⅓ cup	4	1 cup each
4-4½ qts.	½ cup	5	1 ¼ cup each
4½-5 qts.	½ cup	6	1 ½ cups each

1. Put butter in a cast-iron skillet and preheat oven to 425 degrees.

2. While butter melts, mix batter: put eggs in blender and whirl on high speed for 1 minute. Pour in milk and flour gradually and continue blending. I usually blend all of the ingredients for 2-3 minutes to ensure maximum fluffiness.

3. Remove pan from oven and pour in batter. Return pan to oven and bake for 20-25 minutes, until puffy and well-browned.

4. Top with lemon juice and powdered sugar.