German Pancakes

As much as I grumble about Daylight Savings Time (Give me my hour back!) I do love that there is more light each day. It is simply lovely to have longer evenings.
Our hens are quite happy about the waxing daylight as well. Each expresses her joy by laying an egg nearly every morning.
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Aren’t they pretty? Earlier this week, when I noticed that we had perhaps a few too many eggs I whipped up a batch of German pancakes for dinner. Yet another reason to be happy!

German pancakes taste wonderful, look impressive, and at only five ingredients, are incredibly easy to make. They are also pretty good for you–an all-around win!
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As you know, I usually only have two mouths grinning hungrily at me around my dinner table. Counting myself, there are three of us to feed, but you hay have only one. Or seven. Or somewhere in between. Luckily, this recipe is an easy one to adjust for the amount of servings you’d like to end up with.

For each serving, place 2 tablespoons of butter (I prefer salted) in a glass, ceramic, or metal pie plate. You know me, I’m not fussy. Use what you have.
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Put your pie plates in the oven and crank it up to 400°. Allow the plates to heat and the butter to melt while you mix up the batter.

For each serving, crack two large eggs into a large bowl. As I was making three servings, I cracked six eggs into my bowl. Whisk.

Side note: Farm-fresh (or backyard-fresh) eggs are a much deeper golden color–and richer taste–than those you purchase at the supermarket.

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For each serving add 1/2 milk. For my three servings, I added 1-1/2 cups milk. Whisk.

Add 1/2 white flour (or 1/4 cup finely-ground whole wheat flour and 1/4 cup white flour) per serving. Once again, for me that was a total of 1-1/2 cups flour.

Add in 1/4 teaspoons salt per serving. If I had bothered to measure, mine would have been roughly 3/4 teaspoons salt. Whisk until well-blended, but don’t bother trying to get all the lumps out. That would be an exercise in futility–and who wants to exercise right before dinner?

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By now your pie plates should be good and hot and your butter should be melted. If you are like me and you spent your time photographing each step of the batter making process, your butter may have even begun to brown a bit. Though browned butter is not ideal, it won’t hurt anything, so don’t worry about being perfect and just go with it.

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Divide your batter between your hot plates. It should be slightly more than a cup each. Place back in the oven (I don’t care what rack. Do what you need to to get them to fit. One caveat–they will grow as they cook, so if you are cooking on multiple racks make sure you have them spaced out a bit.)

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Bake twenty minutes or until puffed and golden brown on the edges. (Note: If your butter was browned, like mine, the edges of your pancakes will be darker than normal.)
German Pancakes

In my house there is only one correct way to eat German pancakes, with fresh-squeezed lemon and powdered sugar. Once we were out of lemon so we topped them with sliced bananas and real maple syrup. Though wholly incorrect, wrong never tasted so right.
You may choose something completely different to top your pancakes. Go ahead, I won’t judge (even if you are wrong).

Enjoy!

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German Pancakes
Author: 
Recipe type: Breakfast
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 1+
 
With a minimum of effort and ingredients this pancake puffs up into something nearly magical. Eat with abandon. Note: Ingredient amounts listed are per serving. Adjust according to your needs.
Ingredients
  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 eggs
  • ½ cup milk
  • ½ cup flour
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
  1. Place butter in a pie plate and put in oven.
  2. Turn oven to 400º.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk eggs.
  4. Add milk and whisk.
  5. Add flour and salt, whisk again. Mixture will be lumpy.
  6. Ensure that pie plate is hot and butter is melted. If so, add batter. (If making more than one serving, this will be slightly more than 1 cup of batter in each pie plate.)
  7. Bake for 20 minutes or until puffed and golden brown on the edges.
  8. Serve with fresh lemon and powdered sugar, or fruit, or maple syrup.

 

6 Comments

  1. In theory, what if I only have one pie pan…? I may actually have two, I can’t remember because I don’t make pie. So it’s actually kinda strange that I should have any pie pans. Suggestions?

    Reply
    • Good question! Maybe a square 8×8? Or a double recipe in a 9×13?

      Reply
  2. I do six eggs, 1 cup milk, 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon salt and pour into one 9×13 pan, with 1/4 cup of melted butter in the pan. We eat ours with maple syrup, sometimes powdered sugar, and always with bacon, cooked on a jelly roll pan at the same time as the german pancake. Yum! I do like the idea of individual servings…but don’t own enough pans to do all at the same time, therefore I use the casserole dish version. The lady that gave me my recipe gave me an awesome, to die for, syrup recipe I’ll have to find and share with you someday.

    By the way, do you ever sell your excess eggs? We’d love to buy some if you do!

    Reply
  3. Oh, and by the way, do you always use your Danish dough whisk to whisk eggs? I’ve only used mine for bread…maybe I’m missing out on a better use for it?

    Reply
    • If I’m just whisking eggs, I’ll use a regular whisk, but since I was adding in four I used the Danish one. The other one gets lumps in it.
      I don’t quite have enough eggs to share yet, but I’ll keep you in mind. In the meantime, I do have a local source. If you would like the info, let me know.

      Reply
  4. Oh how I LOVE German pancakes! No one ever showed me how wonderful the were with lemon and powdered sugar until I was probably 20and I wondered how I could ever eat them with just syrup again. But my husband likes his with peanut butter and jelly. (That’s a little weird for my taste)Thanks for sharing this I love the idea of pie pans!

    Reply

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