Puffy Pancakes

Puffy pancakes, also known as dutch babies, German pancakes or pfannkuchen, have become my weekend breakfast of choice.

I love real pancakes, but they take for-frickin-EVER on the griddle!  You are stuck in the kitchen pouring batter and flipping pancakes. It's a nearly hour-long, super-involved process.  And that's not even doing anything remotely fancy.  And then, you have to clean the griddle.  No thanks.

Puffy pancakes, in contrast, are a dream.  You mix up the ingredients and throw that bad boy in the oven to cook, uninterrupted, for 15 minutes while you casually brew up some coffee.

The other awesome thing is that this recipe is so easy, you can memorize it and make it forever and ever.

I got this recipe from Love, Taza here.  She uses two eggs but since I'm the only one at my house who ever eats these, I use one egg.  It seems a shame to waste an egg, since I can't finish one of these by myself. Another reason to only use one egg if you're cooking for one is that puffy pancakes are made to be eaten right away.  They become tough and rubbery if you try to store them.

You will need (for one pancake, serves 2):

1/2 cup of milk

1/2 cup of AP flour

1 egg, gently stirred

Pinch of salt

Butter

The above five ingredients are essential.  The next few are strictly optional:

Pinch of sugar

Pinch of other spice- I like cinnamon or nutmeg

Splash of vanilla

All mis-en-placed:

1. Place a glass pie pan in the cold oven with a dollop of butter.  Preheat your oven to 425 degrees F.

2. Mix the flour, salt, sugar and cinnamon together in  large bowl.

3. Mix the milk, egg and vanilla in a medium bowl.  Or, measure the milk in a slightly larger measuring cup than you need, and add the egg and vanilla into that.  One less bowl to wash!

4. Once the oven is preheated, pull the pie pan out and gently swirl the butter around to coat the bottom of the pan.

5.  Now pour the milk and egg mixture into the flour mixture and whisk to combine.  Using a spatula, scrape the batter into the pie pan and bake for 15 minutes.

Now here is the exciting part.  Were you asking yourself, "but why is it called a PUFFY pancake?"

Check it out.  Once in the oven, your batter goes from looking like this:

To puffing up like this!

And then comes out of the oven looking like this!

Unfortunately, after that dramatic presentation puffy pancakes quickly deflate :(

So, mine could be prettier.  But popping this bad boy in the oven is way easier then babysitting a bunch of pancakes on a hot griddle!

I like to serve my puffy pancake with lots of syrup.  Other acceptable toppings include powdered sugar, jam or dulce de leche.

Bread (not so little anymore) Brother approves of his first puffy pancake.

Here is my staging of the final product:

Yeah right, like I have time to read the paper.  I guess a girl can dream.