I’m splitting this post up because, for real, no one wants to scroll through, let alone read all this, if they’re just searching the internet for a Dutch baby recipe, the recipe will be in my following post.
I feel terrible calling them a Dutch Baby, I should adjust to calling them a German Pancake, another common name. When I first told the kids what I was making for breakfast Jerusha was shocked “a baby, why are you making food that’s a baby?!”
Once, years and years ago, I had partaken in a family friend’s breakfast that was a Dutch Baby and I remember politely eating it and wondering why that it would be anyone’s favorite breakfast food. In my memory it was just slimy and custard-y and not my style breakfast - at all. Now that I’ve been making them, I think the resulting texture could’ve simply been a result of putting a lid on it to stay warm while we did chores. I’ve since talked to my sister though, who put some pretty extensive research into Dutch Babies, and she says it is some people’s preference to turn out a ‘gooier’ one and found recommendations on America’s Test Kitchen for how to, so it’s also a possibility that the more custard like version is my friends’ preference.
Ever since then, though, I’ve never given Dutch Babies a second chance; until my sister-in-law asked “have you ever made a Dutch baby? It’s a super easy breakfast and high protein” and her cooking style is similar enough to mine that I knew if she were recommending them, they must be worth a second chance. She told me the basics ‘6 eggs, or more if you want extra, a cup of milk, a cup of flour, some sugar, and it just bakes in a skillet for 15 minutes.’
Sounded worth the effort, 20 minutes and I could serve everyone a protein rich breakfast? Yes please.
I checked Pinterest and all the recipes were pretty much what she said, a few varying slightly in oven temperatures and baking times, lots of variants in flavor choices. I picked one that had lemon zest in it and a lemon glaze, because I happened to have a bag of lemons needing used. I was so happy with the outcome. Fluffy, light, delicious, and all the kids gave it a thumbs up, their official way of rating of all my foods.
In the subsequent weeks I made several, sometimes I added a couple extra eggs and this always results in a more custard like ‘pancake’ and much less rising up the sides of the skillet.
I told my sister that she should make them because “they’re so easy” and that set her out on her own adventure of trial and error to create the perfect Dutch baby - every time. You can read her account here.
If you read her account you will see she had lots of trouble getting it to consistently puff up the sides of the pan, if it fails to puff up the sides, you are left with a flat, slimy sort of textured, extremely thick crape like pancake. Not at all the flavor and texture the well puffed version results in.
I find it fascinating how different our experiences with Dutch babies have been. Mine don’t always turn out perfect and fluffy, but more often than not, they do, and I never felt the need to trouble shoot it, I just took mental notes, like the fact adding extra eggs makes for flat custard-y ones, while white Montana whole wheat flour makes for dense, less risen versions, and the fact you can leave out (read: forget) the sugar and they’ll still be fine, in fact, I definitely recommend using less sugar than your general recipes call for.
My sister is much more meticulous in her cooking though, so in that regard I’m not at all surprised she wanted to find the perfect solutions to turn out a perfect Dutch Baby - every single time. But I also wonder what other contributing factors there could be, since after lots of conversation with her about her trouble shooting, it sounds like many people google it, blog about it, and offer their solutions to a problem I didn’t realize existed; ‘why is my Dutch baby flat?’.
I still wonder what differences there may be, like, do we bake them on different racks in the oven, does she use convection bake, maybe gas vs. electric oven would make a difference? I feel like there could be many variables to our differing success
At any rate though, we’ve embraced Dutch Babies and they’re on my weekly breakfast menu. All the kids eat them well, we usually finish one off without anyone asking for more or having to over eat, so for now, it’s a perfect breakfast option.
I would really love to hear who makes Dutch Babies/German Pancakes and what your version of a passable outcome is! And, if you’ve never made one, I recommend giving it a try. My following post contains my recipe version.
And one of my absolute favorite thing about making a Dutch Baby is the season it leaves my skillet with. It’s just amazing and beautiful.
