HOW TO MAKE A DUTCH BABY

Okay, so I decided that on the weekends, just to change things up a bit, I am going to post a recipe — say something that you might want to picture on Sunday morning for breakfast.

I am STILL going to put out one of my host and nasty stories before today is over with, but for starters, let me tell you how to make yourself a Dutch Baby!

And no — this doesn’t start with a Dutchman in heat.

Or a Dutch woman, for that matter.

Or any sort of Dutch person who falls into one of the sweet cotton candy haze that falls between those rather black and white terms — man, or woman.

So, for starters, just take a quick look in your refrigerator.

Do you remember that bag of Macintosh apples you bought because you were trying to eat healthy and so you ate two apples and then forgot the rest of the bag in the back of the refrigerator?

Well, here’s how I handle that situation.

It’s called a Dutch Baby, or an Apple Dutchie.

Here’s how I did it just last weekend.

First thing you ought to do is to turn your oven onto to 400.

Next thing, you got to start out with the batter. I started out with one or two apples, 3 eggs, half a cup of flour, half a cup of milk, one tablespoon of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon. A pinch of salt wouldn’t hurt either.

The measurements are pretty casual. I decided to go with four eggs when the batter didn’t look jumpy enough. I used plain old white flour, although whole wheat would work to. I used brown sugar but white sugar is fine too. I always feel that brown sugar has a bit more giddy-up in both flavor and sweetness, but most experts will tell you that I am full of old rope and gum gas — but if you ask me, most experts can just get the hell out of my kitchen while I’m cooking.

I used skim milk, because I actually prefer skim milk, but whole milk or anything in between works fine. Buttermilk is freaking awesome in a pancake batter — and that’s basically what a Dutch Baby is — a pancake with attitude.

So I mixed the batter up in a bowl and just let it sit. Batter is always better if you give it a bit of time to just sit and “work”. I like to think that the batter is kind of precooking. It’s a little like foreplay, in that the ingredients are getting to know each other before they get right into the brown-chicken-brown-cow — if you know what I mean, and I think that you might.

For those folks who don’t know, I’ll give you a minute or two to go look “Brown-chicken-brown-cow” on Google to satisfy your curiosity.

Next I’ll give you minute MORE or two to get over your instinctive burst of indignation.

While we’re waiting let’s have Claude Rains walk in, dressed as a gendarme to shout out “Everybody is to leave here immediately. This kitchen is closed until further notice. Clear the room at once. I’m shocked, shocked to find that the kitchen band knows how to play “Brown-chicken-brown-cow”.”

But Claude Rains can just get the hell out of my kitchen along with most experts — as well as anybody out there who DOESN’T recognize the Claude Rains reference. If you don’t recognize it, read the damn recipe, cook your Dutch Baby and get it into you while sit down and watch CASABLANCA.

All right, while the batter is brown-chicken-brown-cowing it’s time to fry the apples. First you got to core the apple and then slice it up. I’ve got one of those little thing-em-ah-gadgets that look a little like a miniature hubcap for a sports car, that you lean on to core and slice your apple.

You can peel the apple too, if you want, but I usually like to leave the peel on. The peel of an apple has got the most vitamins and fiber of the whole entire fruit, so I try to leave it on any chance I get, so that I can pretend that my Dutch Baby is “sort of” healthy.

Some folks like to splash a little squirt of lemon juice on the apple, just so it doesn’t brown while you are cooking, but believe you me, while you’re cooking it is going to go brown anyways, so I never bother with the lemon juice. I save that stuff for papercuts and eyewash.

Once you’ve got the apple slices sizzling nicely, dump the batter right on top of the fried apples, giving it a little stir with your wooden spoon like you are trying to just tease the apple and batter with a little bit more “brown-chicken-brown-cow” and then grab yourself an oven mitt, hoist that iron skillet off the stove and slide it into the oven.

It takes about fifteen minutes in the oven.

Then slide the skillet out of the oven and give it about two minutes to cool and then scoop some out onto a plate and serve it with some maple syrup, or even better a bit of caramel sauce.

Dutch Babies don’t leave over well, so bring an appetite, or better share it with someone you love. Even if you don’t know them, after they get a belly full of your Dutch Baby I guarantee that whoever you are eating with is going to want to marry you and spend the rest of their days filling their bellies full of your awesome-ass Dutch Bellies…I mean babies.

Oh — and WHY are they called Dutch Babies?

They are called that out of ignorance. REALLY what they ought to be calling them is “Deutsch Babies”. That’s right. This is a derivative of an old German recipe, but a whole lot of folks get confused when they hear the term “Deutsch” and think that you are ACTUALLY saying “Dutch”.

Try calling them Pfannkuchen, next time, and see what folks make of that.

Now let me back to some of my dirty sweet red hot writing!

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