Dutch Baby

Saturday mornings mean sleeping in. Late. Or at least until the sun shines through the slats in your blinds and the birds start singing and the neighbors start mowing their lawns (which is actually somewhere around 7 a.m.). But when there's no incessant alarm buzz to jolt you into consciousness, it feels like sleeping in. Especially when you can stretch and pull out the book you fell asleep reading and continue until hunger pangs you.

At which point you'll roll out of bed and head to the kitchen to make some coffee to go with scrambled eggs, pancakes or french toast. But next Saturday, you should make a dutch baby instead. It's like a pancake but fluffier and crispier. And it's the perfect thing to share.

Dutch Baby: adapted from Gourmet and A Homemade Life 3 large eggs 2/3 cup whole milk (I used a mixture of half-and-half and skim) 2/3 cup flour 1/4 teaspoon vanilla dash cinnamon dash nutmeg dash salt 2 tablespoons butter lemon juice powdered sugar Pre-heat oven to 450. Place large sauce pan in middle rack of oven. In a medium bowl, beat eggs until fluffy and pale. Add in flour, vanilla, spices and salt, beat until smooth. The batter will be pretty runny. Remove sauce pan from oven. Melt butter on the pan and spread around evenly. Pour batter into pan. Bake until puffed up and golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes. The dutch baby should slide out of the pan onto a plate pretty easily. Drizzle with lemon juice and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Mom's French Toast

Some in the blogosphere made a request for breakfast items on the blog. I'm actually not a big breakfast person at all. Don't get me wrong, I love crepes and eggs, but rarely am I ready to eat a hearty meal at 8 a.m. But when you drink too much sake and head to the Crescent Moon with friends and stay up until 2-ish helping your roommate look for her lost contact (except that she's looking and you're just talking talking talking) and you wake up at 9 or 10 on Sunday, a big hearty breakfast is the best thing you can think of. Part of my apathy toward breakfast foods stems from my lack of a sweet tooth. I do not like syrup. Too sweet. So if I'm doing anything for breakfast it's eggs with cheese and garlic and salt salt salt. Unless we're talking about French Toast. My mom's French toast was my favorite Saturday morning thing when I was little. What's not to like about fried bread? But the best part was that no syrup was involved. Just butter smeared on the toast and then topped with powdered sugar. It turns out to be pretty close to frosting and very far from syrup. The recipe below is nothing spectacular, just plain, ol' French toast.

French Toast: (for four)
12 slices of bread
>5 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
butter
powdered sugar

In a shallow bowl, whisk eggs and milk until it has uniform consistency. Put a medium skillet on the stove top and heat to medium. Drop a pad of butter on the skillet. Drop a slice of bread into the shallow bowl of eggs, turn to coat completely. Toast bread on skillet, turning to brown each side. I like my French toast a bit crispy on the outside, so make sure it's actually brown.

Remove from skillet when finished, keep warm in the oven at 200 degrees while you toast (fry) the rest of the bread. Cover toast with butter and dowse with powdered sugar.