The Country Mice

A couple of weekends ago I posted a recipe on easy puffy pancakes that mixed up in a blender and baked in the oven.

Here’s the same basic recipe, tweaked so that it works in a cake or loaf pan.

Begin with your beautiful white palette, perfectly contrasted with a fresh cup of joe and some Fresh Air on CBC.

Put flour, milk, sugar, salt, four eggs and soft butter in a blender and whirr until very well mixed.

While the batter blends, grease your mother’s well worn but now rarely used cake pan. The last time I baked a layer cake was Nicholas’s fourth birthday — which, I think, may also have been the first time I baked a layer cake.

And I completely confess laziness on the ozone-unfriendly spray-on coating. It’s completely disgusting and oh-so-convenient.

When thoroughly blended and smooth pour the batter into the greased cake pan.

Place in a 400 degree oven. After 20 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 and bake 10 minutes more.

And the joy you will feel when your pancake emerges all gloriously puffed-up and crusty makes Saturday morning worth the effort.

Cut out a wedge, top with sour cream, some fruit sauce, icing sugar and enjoy.

This one is easy-peasy and is a marvelously simple weekend treat!

Recipe: Puffy Pancakes

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Combine in blender:

2/3 c milk

2/3 c flour

4 eggs

1/2 t salt

1 T sugar

2 T soft butter

Butter one round layer-cake or loaf pan.

Bake 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 F and bake 10 minutes more.

Top with sour cream, fruit, icing sugar.

Serves two to three, doubles easily.

Have fun!

Addendum from my testers:

Guaranteed to please!

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We love these airy little cakes. They mix up fast on a Saturday morning, leaving the cook free to brew up a fresh pot-o-coffee while they bake in the oven.

You’ll need a jumbo muffin tin or mini-bundt cake pan in order to make these individual cakes. Next week I’ll post a variation you can make in a cake or loaf pan.

You’ll need 2/3 flour,  1 T sugar,  1/2 t salt, four eggs, 2/3 c milk and 2 T soft butter. You’ll need the sour cream at embellishment time.

Put everything in the blender, including the soft butter.

Blend. Let it whirr away for a few minutes. In this case, you cannot overmix.

In fact, while the blender is whirring, generously grease the muffin tin.

Turn off the blender and pour the batter into the muffin tins until about 1/2 to 2/3 full. In this giant mini-bundt pan I can fill five of the six cups, and one of the finished cakes is one serving.

Place in a 400 degree oven and bake 20 – 25 minutes or until the puffer cakes are puffed and golden on top.

They’ll emerge from the oven looking quite heavenly and if you’ve used adequate grease in the pan, should pop out easily.

Place one or two puffer cakes on a plate, spoon on a generous scoop of sour cream, and top with a tart fruit sauce.

Many years ago my friend Sigi discovered this lingonberry sauce from IKEA. I now stash jars of it in the cupboard specifically for puffer cakes but you can use any jam or fruit compote, of course.

Dust generously with icing sugar and dig right in. Guaranteed to have you using your fingers to clean the plate!

Puffer Cake Recipe

2/3 c flour

2/3 c milk

1 T sugar

1/2 t salt

4 eggs

2 T soft butter

sour cream

lingonberry sauce or other fruit sauce or jam

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

Generously grease a mini-bundt cake pan or giant muffin tin.

Combine flour, milk, sugar, salt, eggs and butter in blender and mix until very well blended.

Fill mini cake pans 2/3 with batter.

Bake 20 – 25 minutes.

Remove from oven and place on plate. Top with sour cream and lingonberry sauce and dust with icing sugar.

Serves four and doubles easily.

Let me know how it goes!

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The Pancake House is a long-favoured Winnipeg breakfast spot.

There you can dine on waffles, airy German pancakes, tiny dollar-sized pancakes, savoury pancakes, sweet pancakes — everything a Saturday morning could desire.

They also serve a pancake for which they’re quite famous — the Baby Apple Pancake. Butter, sugar, cinnamon and apples play a starring role in this sweet concoction, best washed down with black coffee

I’ve tried for a long time to re-create the cinnamon crunchiness of that pancake and encourage you to try my recipe.

The illustrations will show a doubled version of the recipe at the bottom. It’s cool autumnal morning today — everyone had an appetite!

Our apple trees are in full production right now so my able-bodied assistant collected some for us. Otherwise, two or more apples will work fine.

Cut, core and slice apples. I don’t peel them as our apples are not sprayed.

Melt butter in an oven-proof skillet over medium heat.

Add the sliced apples and sauté about five minutes, until they soften.

Meanwhile you’ll need flour, sugar, milk, eggs, salt, and vanilla.

Mix flour with milk and a pinch of salt.

Add eggs and vanilla and don’t over mix — the difference between flat and puffy. We’re aiming for height but the flops are delicious too (been there and ate that).

Lumps are all right.

Pour the batter over the apples in the skillet. You’ll have only a thin layer.

Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes

While your pancake is baking, combine 1 T sugar with 1/2 t sugar.

After about 15 minutes, remove the skillet from the oven. The batter will be only lightly set.

Run a knife or spatula around the edge of the pancake to loosen, put a plate on top, take a deep breath and flip over the skillet.

Slide the pancake off the plate and back into the pan. Phew!

Sprinkle this freshly cooked side with the cinnamon sugar combo and put the skillet back into the over for about 10 minutes more.

It will emerge puffed up and shiny with a crunchy sugary crust.

Loosen the edges of the pancake and slide it on to a warm serving plate. Then cut into wedges and serve. You can drizzle it with syrup if you like, as the tartness of the apples contrasts nicely with the sweet.

This is absolutely our favourite weekend breakfast.  Hope you’ll give it a try!

Baked Apple Pancake Recipe

2 or more apples

1/4 c butter

1/2 c flour

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c milk

2 eggs

1/2 vanilla

1/4 t salt

1/2 t cinnamon / 1T sugar

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Cut, core (and peel if desired) apples.

Melt butter over medium heat in oven-proof skillet.

Sauté apples until softened. Remove from heat.

Combine flour, sugar, milk, eggs, vanilla and salt until just blended.

Pour batter evenly over apples and bake in oven for 15 minutes, until batter is set.

Remove skillet from oven, run a spatula around the edge of pancake to loosen. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar mixture.

Invert pancake on to large plate and slide pancake back into skillet.

Return the pan to oven for about 10 minutes more, until golden and puffy.

Slide pancake on to a warm serving plate, cut into wedges, drizzle with syrup and enjoy!

Let me know how it goes!

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That’s the meaning of kaiserschmarm, a delicious buttery pancake we ate this morning.

Kaiserschmarm is popular in Germany — a quasi-instant version shows up in the supermarket aisles — round about where we’d locate Betty Crocker, Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben.

In Germany they have Dr. Oetker. Germans are known for their higher educational standards.

So if you’re up for a tasty experiment please try this recipe, given to me more than — I don’t really want to say, now that I think of it — given to me in my university days by my dear friend Sigi.

You start with a veritable sea of white — flour, sugar, eggs, salt, icing sugar.

Mix 1 c flour,  1c milk, 2 egg yolks, pinch of salt and 2 T sugar.

Beat the egg whites till pretty stiff and fold in to the batter.

The egg whites will bump up the volume quite a bit.

Melt a generous amount of butter, medium heat, in a non-stick pan. You have to be generous. I’ve tried to be lean on the butter — it won’t work.

Pour in the batter.

Let it cook a bit and get ready a stiff-ish spatula or pancake flipper.

While it’s still ooey and gooey on the bottom cut it into quarters with the edge of that stiff spatula.

The pancake will ooze out and you’ll feel This Can’t Be Right as cutting an uncooked pancake seems contrary to anything you’ve ever done.

Flip said quarters.

The pancakes will be only lightly cooked on the bottom, not usually the way we fry up flapjacks.

Cut the quarters into eighths, the eighths into sixteenths, the sixteenths into thirtyseconds and carry on in multiples until you have a series of bite-size bits.

If you were not generous with the butter at the start you may be called upon to add more. Grilled charcoal’y chunks are not part of the Kaiserschmarm experience.

When you have enough wee bits remove from the heat and prepare to serve, dusted with icing sugar.

A King’s Feast indeed!

Kaiserschmarm Recipe

1 c milk

1 c flour

2 eggs, separated

2 T sugar

pinch of salt

butter

icing sugar

Mix flour with milk, add sugar, egg yolks and salt.

Beat egg whites until firm, fold into batter.

Melt 1/4 c butter in non-stick frying pan, medium heat.

Pour in batter, cook briefly (1-2 mins), then cut into quarters and flip.

Continue to cut into smaller pieces while frying, adding butter if cubes begin to stick.

Dust with icing sugar.

Serves 4.

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