Scraping the Skillet

A few weeks back I promised I would post the outcome of our German Apfelpfannkuchen experiment. You see, when Dylan lived in Germany during high school his host Grandmother regularly made German Apple Pancakes. Thing was, when he got back to the states he couldn’t find the same type of pancake anywhere.

Sure, there are a lot of venues like OHOP that serve a dish that is called a German Apple Pancake, but that’s really more of a dutch baby with apples and lots of sugar. The pancakes, or Pfannkuchen, that D was served were practically savory, save for sugar sprinkled over the top. In fact, he says that the same batter was used for both the Apfelpfannkuchen and Pfannkuchen that featured Fleischwurst.

It is absolutely possible that the version that is predominate in the U.S. came from another region of Germany. I don’t know all that much about different regional cuisines. And, though I’m sure I’ll learn and share more information on that as time goes on, I don’t have much to put in this post in that regard. The one thing that I do know is that (purportedly) Bavarians have a predilection for cake at breakfast. This version certainly qualifies as just that.

Anyway, back to the experiment. Of course, we decided that we wanted to make the same pancakes he had in Germany here at home. The first attempt followed a recipe in Cooking Light, which we didn’t love. The product was intensely sugary and too eggy and dense to be an accurate replication.

I did some digging around using our good friend the internet and found several recipes that seemed to be more along the lines of what we were after. The recipe below is a conglomeration and adaptation of all of my findings. Dylan approved of the final result, though he did let me know that it was still not exactly like what he had in Germany. While I sandwiched the apples between batter, the Pfannkuchen he had in Germany had the apples on top. I’ll point out where you would vary the recipe to achieve that goal, should you choose to try that method.

Apfelpfannkuchen

• 1 1/4 c AP flour
• 2 T sugar
• 1 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1/2 c milk
• 1 egg
• 5 T unsalted butter, melted, divided
• 3 medium apples
• 2 T sugar
• 1 T cinnamon
• 1/4 t fresh ground nutmeg
• 1 T lemon juice
• 1/4 c water (for my version)

Sift together the first four ingredients, through the salt, in a large mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl combine the milk, egg and 1 T melted butter. I used the milk to temper the melted butter before adding in the egg so that the egg wouldn’t scramble and the butter would be more evenly distributed.

Pour the wet ingredients into the large bowl and mix until the batter just comes together. Don’t worry if there are a couple of lumps. For a quick cake/muffin batter like this you want to avoid mixing too much so your final dish isn’t too tough.

Now that the batter is done, set it aside while you deal with the apples.

Peel, core and slice your apples into approximately

1/8″ thick wedges. Toss in a medium bowl with the cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg and lemon juice.

In a 10″ skillet heat 2 T of butter and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan. Sauté the apples for about 3 minutes.

Add 1/4 cup of water to the skillet and bring to a boil. Cover the apples and simmer 3 minutes. Remove them from the pan and set aside.

Melt the final 2 T of butter in the skillet and turn the pan to coat the bottom and sides as evenly as possible. Obviously you won’t be able to get the butter all of the way up the sides. That’s OK. Just coat as much as you can.

Pour 1/2 of the batter into the pan. Place the apples on top and cover with the remaining batter.

Cook over medium-high heat for about a minute, then lower the heat and cook for 3 more minutes. To finish, move the skillet to your broiler and cook 3-5 minutes, until the top begins to brown. If you aren’t using a cast-iron skillet, please double check to make sure the handle of your pan is oven safe before you stick it in there!

With a spatula, gently loosen the pancake from your skillet and slide it onto a plate to serve. Dust with powdered sugar if desired.

If you are making the apples-on-top version, you’ll only pour half of the batter in the skillet and cover it with half of the apples. The rest of the cooking steps are the same. You’ll need to repeat the process and make 2 pancakes for the quantities listed in this recipe.

The one pancake that we made easily fed the two of us for breakfast with extra for snacking. I think you could feed 4 folks off of one pancake, especially if you served something yummy like bacon with it.

Guten Appetit!