Cast Iron Cooking - The Dutch Baby

I’m sitting at my computer desk, looking out the window at my pit covered in snow and ice. It’s February 4^th and we’re smack dab in the middle of winters icy grip.Woo hoo! My favorite time of year! (/sarcasm off).

It’s been a rough winter so far. The cold, snow and ice combined with my ailing knees and back has basically shut down Big Ricky’s Smoke Shack until spring. It bums me out when days like today come around -Superbowl Sunday! I should be out there banging out Jalapeno Poppers and a rack of ribs for the big game. But instead, I’m sitting here looking out the window and longing for warm weather so I can get back outside and smoke some meat!

While I haven’t been in the pit for a few months, I have been able to play around with a couple of Cast Iron pans. My beautiful bride presented me with an awesome 10 inch Cast Iron pan for Christmas this past year. Thank you sweetie, I love it!

It’s not BBQ, but I’m really starting to enjoy cooking with CI in the oven and stove. I can’t wait to get some practice on the open fire this summer. 

Last weekend, I saw a photo on Facebook, in a CI group I belong to, for a “Dutch Baby”. If you’re not familiar, a Dutch Baby is basically a big airy pancake. While it can be made in a number of different pans, the CI pans seem to return the best results.

The Dutch Baby is a simple recipe made from eggs, flour, milk, butter,vanilla and sugar -I’ll provide the recipe we followed below.

There are a couple of keys to successful Dutch Baby I found. The first thing is the eggs and milk need to be at least room temperature. I float the eggs in some warm water for 10 minutes or so and microwave the milk for 20-25 seconds. The second key is the pan needs to be hot. A hot Cast Iron dutch oven or frying pan will give you a super nice crunchy and browned outside.

The Dutch Baby is cooked at a temp of 425 F for about 25 minutes. It will blow up like a pillow, but DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR! It’s going to collapse once you pull it from the oven – peeking early will collapse it early...DON’T DO THAT!

There’s a variety of ways to serve a Dutch Baby. Many people will add apples, berries or other fruits. Some, like me and the missus, prefer Maple Syrup, while some just like a sprinkle of powdered sugar or cinnamon sugar.

If you asked me to describe a Dutch Baby, i’d have to say it’s like a popover, a waffle and a piece of French Toast all rolled into a delicious, light and airy treat that’ll make a great addition to your weekend breakfast or brunch (or dinner, if you fancy breakfast for dinner!)

Here’s a simple recipie for Dutch Baby. We used a 10 inch CI pan.

Ingredients

3 Eggs

½ cup AP Flour

½ cup Milk (we used 2%)

1 TBSP Sugar

Pinch of Nutmeg

2 tsp Vanilla extract

4 TBSP Butter

Syrup, preserves, confectionery sugar, Nutella, your favorite topping

Step 1

Put your pan in the oven and preheat your oven to 425

Step 2

Combine eggs, flour, milk, sugar and nutmeg in a blender jar and blend until smooth. Batter may also be mixed by hand.

Step 3

Place butter in a heavy 10-inch skillet or baking dish and place in the oven. As soon as the butter has melted (watch it so it does not burn) add the batter to the pan, return pan to the oven and bake for 20 minutes, until the pancake is puffed and golden. Lower oven temperature to 300 degrees and bake five minutes longer.

Step 4

Remove pancake from oven, cut into wedges and serve at once topped with syrup, preserves, confectioners' sugar or cinnamon sugar.