Applelicious Dutch baby

Though it’s typically served for breakfast, a Dutch baby makes a sweetly satisfying dessert when topped with lots of luscious fresh fruit and warm brown sugar.

Credit: Voyageur Press / Will Taylor

• serves

  4

• prep

  20 minutes

• cook

  25 minutes

• difficulty

  Mid

A Dutch baby is one of those dishes that can go from breakfast to dessert and back to breakfast again. It’s basically an eggy pancake — or a marriage of a pancake and a popover, if you will. It’s sometimes called a German pancake, from which it was derived, and the term Dutch refers to the Ger­man-speaking immigrants to American known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. 

Ingredients

• 1 cup (120 g) plain (all-purpose) flour
• ½ cup (106 g) packed brown sugar, divided
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon, divided
• 6 large eggs
• 1 cup (240 ml) milk
• Olive oil spray
• ¼ cup (56 g) butter
• 3 medium apples, cored and cut into ¼-inch (6-mm) slices
• Icing sugar (powdered sugar)

Instructions

At home, combine the flour, ¼ cup (103 g) of the brown sugar, and ¼ teaspoon of the cinnamon in a resealable plastic bag and store in a dry, cool place until ready to use.

In camp, prepare a mound of wood coals (see How to build a great campfire for cooking), hardwood lump charcoal, or charcoal briquettes.

Meanwhile, whisk together the eggs, milk, and flour mixture in a medium bowl until well blended.

Move about a quart’s worth of coals to the cooking pit and arrange them in a ring. Lightly spray a dutch oven with oil and heat it over the coals. Melt the butter in the oven, then pour in the egg mixture. Spread the apples evenly over the surface and sprinkle with the remaining ¼ cup (103 g) sugar and the remaining ¼ teaspoon cinnamon. Cover and place 1½ rings of coals on the lid.

Bake over medium heat for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the pancake is puffed and golden all over. (Call the kids over to ooh and ahh at your creation once you take the oven off the heat, because the pancake will deflate shortly after the lid is removed.)

Dust the pancake with powdered sugar before serving.

Note

• Try this recipe with pears, or half ap­ples and half pears. If it’s summertime and you want to take advantage of seasonal berries (imagine how beau­tiful it would be if you could forage wild blackberries near camp?), bake the Dutch baby with any combination of berries and scatter a handful of fresh berries on top before serving.

Recipe from The New Camp Cookbook: Gourmet grub for campers, road trippers and adventurers by Linda Ly, photographs by Will Taylor (Voyageur Press/Quarto Group, hb, $29.99). Read more of Linda's camping tips, fire building instructions and recipes here. 

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.

A Dutch baby is one of those dishes that can go from breakfast to dessert and back to breakfast again. It’s basically an eggy pancake — or a marriage of a pancake and a popover, if you will. It’s sometimes called a German pancake, from which it was derived, and the term Dutch refers to the Ger­man-speaking immigrants to American known as the Pennsylvania Dutch.