autumn recipe: Dutch apple pancake

This one officially ranks as my favorite new recipe for Fall.

Photo via Carter Mountain Orchard's Facebook Page

A friend and I took a field trip last weekend to Carter Mountain, where we picked three giant canvas bags full of Pink Lady apples. This variety stores well, so I'm planning to pack them away to have on hand all winter. It's no surprise, though, that I was dying to start cooking with them right away. We got home from the Charlottesville area Saturday night, and I almost immediately went online searching for an apple-related breakfast recipe for the next morning. I found this tasty recipe for a Dutch Apple Pancake online at Epicurious, and by 9 a.m. we were feasting on the fruits of our labor (plus some great raspberries we had scored at our farmer's market on Saturday morning).

Photo Courtesy of Alice Q. Foodie

Based on my limited experience and on the many comments from Epicurious readers, I'd say this is a pretty flexible recipe. Use different fruit. Add an extra egg or two. Use a little less butter. Try different toppings. Or, like me, make it in a too-small dish, or make a rough guesstimate on proportions when you discover you have one egg too few in your fridge. It seems pretty hard to mess this up.

Here's my slight adaptation of the recipe from Epicurious...

Dutch Apple Pancake
1 cup milk
4 eggs
3 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
2/3 cup all purpose flour
3 Tbsp unsalted butter
3 med. Pink Lady apples
3 Tbsp (packed) brown sugar
Lemon wedges
Powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 425°F.  Put butter in 9x13" glass baking dish and heat in oven until butter melts, about 5 minutes.
2. While butter is heating, core apples and slice thinly. (No need to peel them.)
3. Place apple slices on top of melted butter, layering to cover the bottom of the baking dish.
4. Return dish to oven and bake until apples soften slightly and butter is bubbling and beginning to brown, about 10 minutes.
5. While apples bake, make batter: Whisk eggs in large bowl. Add milk, sugar, vanilla, salt, and cinnamon and whisk until well blended. Add flour and whisk until batter is smooth.
6. When apples are ready, pour batter into the baking dish over top of them.
7. Sprinkle the top with brown sugar and return to the oven.
8. Bake pancake until puffed and brown, about 20 minutes.
9. Serve warm with lemon wedges and powdered sugar.

The recipe says it serves four, but Bob and I easily polished off a 3/4 batch in one sitting and could happily have eaten still more. Yum!