When you need a plan for dinner, try breakfast instead
Posted by Kim Davaz • 10/20/10 • 12:39am
Carl Davaz
When you have a group to feed, dress up a Dutch Baby with confectioner’s sugar and raspberries for a great breakfast or dinner.
Who doesn’t love breakfast for dinner? It’s especially nice for those who are too harried in the morning to have breakfast for breakfast.
A Dutch Baby, a big puffy pancake made in the oven, is a great way to serve a group without having to stand at the stove making pancakes or eggs one by one. Plus, you probably have all the ingredients on hand.
In that roundabout route that recipes often take, a Dutch Baby is really very similar to savory Yorkshire Pudding and popovers, with at least a nodding acquaintance to clafoutis, which is the French dessert version. All are made with a thin, eggy, milky batter cooked in the oven. It’s the batter hitting the preheated buttered pan that makes it rise and puff. The puff isn’t what’s wanted in a clafoutis, so that goes into a cold pan.
I love a recipe you can play with to make your own. This recipe can also go savory by omitting the sugar and adding grated cheese to the batter. Serve either with your favorite sausage or bacon.
You might even be able to entice trick-or-treaters to eat this for dinner before they go out on Halloween.
Dutch Baby
- 1/3 cup butter
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup milk
- 1 cup flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon sugar
Melt butter in 400-degree oven in a glass pie plate or 9-inch square glass pie pan. Combine eggs, milk, flour, salt and sugar. Blend until smooth. This can be done in a blender, with an immersion blender or with a whisk and a lot of energy.
Pour batter over the melted butter and bake about 20 minutes or until puffy and browned around the edges. Serve with a sprinkle of lemon juice and powdered sugar, applesauce, syrup, jam or fruit.
Variations:
Add one thinly sliced apple or pear or three thinly sliced plums to the butter as it melts. Evenly distribute fruit in pan and dust with a mixture of 2 teaspoons sugar and 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon. Pour batter over fruit and bake as directed.
Omit sugar. Add 1/2 cup grated cheese (Cheddar, Monterrey Jack, pepper Jack) to the batter. This is good topped with salsa, sour cream and cilantro.
Omit sugar. Add cooked crumbled sausage or bacon to the batter.
Clafoutis: Melt butter. Brush pan with butter and add the remaining butter to the batter. Pour a thin layer of batter in the pan. Evenly distribute 1 1/2 cups blueberries, raspberries or pitted cherries over the batter. Gently pour batter over fruit. Bake about 30 minutes or until set. Let cool and dust with powdered sugar before serving.
Kim Davaz of Eugene writes the biweekly Eating In column.
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