Our Dutch Baby

My great aunt used to make these when I was a kid, but I never knew what they were called or what was even in them, beside apple.  I suppose I forgot over the years and never thought to ask anyone if they remember, but I was going to make breakfast the other day and saw a picture of this in a cook book.  We had made a German pancake the other weekend and this seemed very similar so I thought I would give it a try!  It turns out what my aunt was making all this time was a Dutch Baby (sometimes called a German/Austrian Apple Oven Pancake).

It is very easy and the preparation work is very fast, so if you need something fairly quick (aside from the 30 minute cook time) you can easily whip this together and forget about it until it’s done.

-1 tblspoon soft butter (grease the pie dish)

-2 large eggs ( I used three medium)

-1 thinly sliced apple (fuji or pink lady preferred)

-1 tsp cinnimon

-1/2 tsp cardamom

-1/2 tsp vanilla extract

-1 Tbsp packed brown sugar

-1/2 cup of milk

-1/2 cup all purpose flour

-1 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease a glass pie dish with the butter.  Sprinkle the brown sugar evenly across the plate.  Lay the sliced apples in a circular repeating layer.  Crack all the eggs into a mixing bowl and beat lightly with a whisk just until the yolks mix (don’t use an electric mixer, as you don’t want to over beat it).  Add flour, milk, salt, cinnamon, cardamom and vanilla.  Whisk until blended, just after the lumps disappear.  Do not over beat or the eggs will not puff in the oven.  Pour mixture over apples.  Bake for 30-35 mins (do not open the oven at all until within the last five minutes).  Some recipes say to flip it upside down and onto a plate, but the apples always float to the top (they did on my aunt’s as well).  If they stay at the bottom, flip it; if they float, then don’t.  Dust with powdered sugar and serve!  Great for a weekend breakfast or a dessert!

Chocolate Soufflé – Addendum

Much better! You can wrap the dish in parchment if you want it to rise linearly, but I like the muffin chef's hat look.

For those of you who may have read our previous soufflé recipe post, I have made a new discovery and they turn out much more like traditional soufflé.  The recipe calls for 1 large egg, and I noticed that perhaps, “large” that is not a very accurate measurement (obviously if you are tracking points you should adjust accordingly, probably by weight).  I decided that maybe the eggs I have are “small” despite what it says on the package.  In any case, I would error on the side of too much egg rather than not enough, so if in doubt, double your egg whites and they seem to work best if you let them near room temperature for an hour before.  The second trick is that the recipe calls for soft peaks.  I say firm peaks.  I beat them until the peaks held nice and firm.  I am told that if you over whip them they will not rise as well, so only whip them into firm peaks as long as they are still glossy, if they start to look too matte, like a whip cream, you should stop.  DO wait until the chocolate mixture is mostly cool before mixing with the egg whites or the heat will damage the egg body.  And lastly, making them in the larger ceramic cereal bowls, of course did not yield a large rise since it expands sideways rather than upwards.  These tiny ramekins work well (which the recipe does call for).  I suggest finding a ramekin or small condiment bowl (oven safe) that is small enough so your batter comes nearly to the top, that way they will fluff up and over making gorgeous little muffin-like tops.  Also, like stated in the previous post, I had to cook these longer than the suggested 14 minutes.  These cooked 23-25 minutes.

Enjoy, these are getting much better with practice.

Measured with love

I love to bake. So yesterday when I got home from work there was an unexpected package. What could it be? Is it a necklace? A small trinket? No! It is heart shaped measuring spoons. I am in love.

Now everything we bake can truly be made with love.

Chocolate Soufflé

    We recently tried one the of the recipes that from Weight Watchers.  To be honest, they usually aren’t very good but we whipped together the chocolate soufflé which utilizes chocolate milk and whipped egg whites and they are really quite good and not terribly difficult to make.  Here we have doubled the recipe to make larger ones (which would make them six points each for those of you counting).  If you are making a double batch in a single bowl, make sure to nearly double the cook time, you should probably rely on a toothpick to see when they are done rather than the time.  They certainly don’t puff up the way a traditional soufflé would, but they do “rise” a bit.  Be sure not to open the oven while they are cooking.  You can find the original recipe we used here.

Fig and Thyme Cake Recipe

Last week, I was given a ton of figs and I’ve been eating them on my yogurt but we just couldn’t eat them fast enough so I started looking up recipes for figs and I found a bunch of delicious ones but they were time consuming – whip egg whites, separate this, blah blah, and I’m making this at 8 p.m. after working a 10 hour day. I wasn’t into complicated and I remembered my favorite cake recipe for a pear cardamom cake. I interchange the pears for figs and the cardamom for thyme. It is fantastic.

figs sitting in the brown sugar and butter mixture

Fig and Thyme Upside-Down Cake

Serves 8

1 1/2 cups flour (i used cake flour which required 3 more tablespoons)1/4 teaspoon salt2 teaspoons baking powder

1 – 2 tablespoons of fresh thyme (this is to taste – I added almost 2 based off how the flour and thyme smelled together. I didn’t want it to be overpowering but I wanted it to be noticeable)

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter, room temperature, divided

3/4 cup packed golden brown sugar

10 small figs sliced into discs (I covered my entire cake with discs of figs so depending on the size you might need more or less)

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup milk, room temperature

black pepper (optional)Whipping Cream (optional)

pint of heavy whipping cream

sugar -to taste

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 9-by-1 1/2-inch round cake pan.

2. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together. Stir in the thyme and set aside.

3. Melt one-fourth cup butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the brown sugar and stir for 2 to 3 minutes, until the sugar has melted and combined with the butter. Pour the mixture into the prepared cake pan, spreading it to reach the sides.

4. Cut the figs, cut into discs and discard the stems. Arrange the figs in a circle around the cake pan, starting at the center and working outwards. Sprinkle with a dash of pepper (optional). Cover with plastic wrap and set aside.

5. Beat the remaining one-half cup butter in the bowl of an electric mixer until soft and fluffy. Add the sugar and beat until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Beat in the vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl when needed. Alternately add the flour mixture and the milk, beating after each addition just until combined.

6. Gently spoon the cake batter on top of the figs, smoothing out to the edge of the pan and making sure the cake batter fills in around the pears.

7. Bake until the top is a deep golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Place the cake on a rack to cool for 5 minutes in the pan.

8. Run a small spatula or knife around the edge of the pan and invert onto a cake plate, leaving the pan on the cake for 10 minutes. Carefully remove the pan. Serve warm or at room temperature

9. Make whip cream, pour pint of heavy whipping cream into bowl and add sugar to taste (usually 1-2 tablespoons) and whip with either hand mixer or stand mixer until cream becomes thick and fluffy.

10. Serve, wait for everyone’s mouth’s to drool while you’re plating up this sugary, figgy cake and service with a big dollop of homemade whipped cream.

The only slightly sad warning is this cake doesn’t last if you don’t eat it past the second day. It might have lasted longer in the fridge but its so moist that it will turn before you can eat it all!