Dutch Baby Apple Pancake

Last week, in our “Milk & More” offerings, we picked up these delicious little Organic Pink Lady Apples from Briggs & Eggers Orchards in Wilcox Arizona.

We are dedicated to restoring balance in our environment. We nurture our trees and soil with organic amendments and rely upon natural insect control. Avoiding chemical pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers allows us to support our customers’ health and protect our planet.

Briggs & Eggers Orchards

These apples remind me of the ones from Millstone Holler in Kentucky where my dad grew up. Earthy. Small. Sweet. Not like the GMO apples you generally buy in the store.

I woke up yesterday morning wanting a special treat. I had the apples from the Milk & More order, plus Hickman Farm Eggs and of course Danzeisen Cream and Whole Milk. The perfect ingredients for an oven-baked Dutch Baby Apple Pancake. I peeled three of these gems and went to work.

Dutch Baby’s are super easy to make and impressive because they puff up in the oven like mad and have the wonderful texture of a custard.

The Process

I start by melting a couple tablespoons of butter in a cast iron skillet.

Instead of adding raw apples to the batter like many recipes call for, I caramelize the apples first in the butter with vanilla, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Caramelizing apples really brings out the sweetness, and since I don’t add sugar to the batter, I love the deeper flavor this brings.

Next, you stick the cast iron in the oven and let it preheat to 425 degrees while you mix up the wet and the dry ingredients. Because I eat gluten-free, I used a blend of cassava flour and tapioca, but all-purpose flour works fine!

The batter will be THIN. Like easily pourable thin. Carefully pull that hot cast iron with the apples out of the oven and pour the batter over the apples.

Back into the oven the apple batter goes. Twenty minutes later, Voila! A beautiful puffy custard-like pancake.

We like to eat them exactly as they are, but you can top with maple syrup or chopped nuts or more Danzeisen Heavy Cream! In addition to the Dutch Baby Apple Pancake we had Jones Dairy Farms breakfast sausage links.

We love this sausage because it has nothing bad added. No MSG. No nitrates. Hormone free. From the company:

We use the same ingredients that Milo Jones used more than 131 years ago when he started the company—pork, water, salt and spices.

Jones Dairy Farms

We’re still working on getting these for the store, so stay tuned!

As for the apples, I have a couple 3 lb bags available now. Shoot me a message if you’d like to buy one. We’ll be ordering again soon!

Fred Harvey Plates

We served our breakfast on vintage Fred Harvey plates. Probably about ten years ago, Brian and I visited the painted desert. At the visitor’s center, we met a group of Harvey Girls showing off their dishware. One of those women was Winslow local Marie LaMar. We talked about Winslow and I fell in love with these dishes, the Berkeley pattern from the Syracuse China Company, an exclusive pattern to the Fred Harvey dining establishments along the Santa Fe Railroad.

Over the years, I’ve picked up several pieces and love them still.

Okay. Enough rambling. Here’s the recipe…

Dutch Baby Apple Pancake

• 2 Tbsp unsalted Grassfed Butter
• 1/2 cup Flour (I used Cassava flour plus 2 TBSP Tapioca Flour to make it gluten free)
• 1 TBSP Sugar (Optional. I don’t put sugar in the batter because for me the apples make it sweet enough)
• 1/4 tsp himalayan salt
• 1/3 cup Danzeisen Heavy Cream
• 3 Hickman eggs
• 1/2 cup Danzeisen Whole Milk
• 3 Small Organic Pink Lady Apples (or however many apples needed to cover single layer in the bottom of the pan)
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• Dash of nutmeg

Instructions

• Melt butter in a cast iron skillet
• Slice apples and sautée in the butter plus the vanilla and cinnamon until caramelized
• Put the cast iron with the apples in the oven at 425 degrees to heat up the cast iron and preheat the oven.
• Sieve the dry ingredients together into a bowl to remove the clumps. 
• Mix the cream, eggs, and milk together in a bowl, and whisk to combine. Slowly add in the dry ingredients, stirring to combine. 
• Carefully take the hot pan out of the oven and tip it around in a circle so the butter coats the edges. Note: You will need thick oven gloves to do this! The pan is HOT.
• Immediately after this is done, pour the pancake batter into the pan.
• Bake the mix for 20 minutes on the oven’s middle rack.
• Remove the pan from the oven, and top with your choice! Chopped pecans, drizzles of maple syrup, Danzeisen whipped cream, or a light coating of cinnamon. 
• Enjoy! 

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Until next time…

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