Summer has come and gone and now that our apartment no longer turns into a sauna everyday, I have free rein over the oven again, which means that I can restart my tradition of weekly dutch babies. It has been a little over two years since I posted my first recipe on here and two years later, my dutch baby obsession is still going strong. This one is large enough to share, unlike the first one, which has not served two people since we got our larger cast iron pan.

When we’re feeling fancy, our favorite toppings are summer fruit and Nutella. I sometimes add chopped pecans to the dough, but I’m not always in the mood for them. I have also made a few changes to my technique. I don’t cook the fruit in the oven anymore. Instead, I prepare it while the oven is preheating, put it in little porcelain bowls, and place the bowls on the warm potion of the stovetop until the dutch baby is ready to come out of the oven. This warms the fruit up a little bit. If the fruit is not very ripe, I also sprinkle some powdered sugar on it to sweeten it up a bit. The Nutella goes in a little porcelain bowl as well because my stovetop gets warm enough that it would melt the plastic jar if I tried to heat it up directly. I learned this the hard way, by mutilating our immersion blender.

The dutch baby lessons I’ve learned since my first post is that it’s a pretty failproof recipe as long as I use whole milk, and that it absolutely has to be eaten right away. If you don’t eat it right away, my obsession with this pancake will baffle you, as it baffles me the few times it ends up cooling on me before I can dig in. So if the person you’re sharing it with ends up needing to do their bathroom activities as soon as the dutch baby is ready to come out of the oven — does this happen in other families or just ours? — then turn off the oven and keep the dutch baby in there until they’re back because slightly burnt dutch baby is better than cold dutch baby, trust me.

Also, if you’re feeling lazy and can’t be bothered with the fruit or pecans, it is still delicious served the traditional way, with just the powdered sugar, some drizzles of freshly squeezed lemon juice, and maybe some maple syrup.

Low-sodium dutch baby with summer fruit, pecans, and Nutella

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 cup (118 mL) all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup (118 mL) whole milk
• 1 tablespoon (15 mL) maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon (1.25 mL) vanilla
• a pinch of cinnamon
• a pinch of nutmeg
• 1/4 cup (59 mL) pecans, coarsely chopped (optional)
• 1/2 tablespoon (7.5 mL) unsalted butter
• approximately 1 1/2 tablespoons (23.5 mL) powdered sugar
• half of a peach, pitted and sliced into half slices
• 1/4 cup (59 mL) raspberries
• 1/4 cup (59 mL) blackberries
• 1 tablespoon (15 mL) Nutella

Directions

1. Preheat the oven at 400°F.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, lightly whisk the eggs. Stir in the milk, flour, maple syrup, vanilla, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and whisk until blended. Gently stir in the pecans if using.
3. In a 12-inch cast iron skillet, melt the butter over medium-high heat. Swirl the butter up the sides of the pan, ensuring that the whole pan is coated.
4. Once the butter is fully melted, turn off the heat and pour in the batter. Have a spatula handy to help you get everything out of the bowl quicker. Transfer the pan to the oven.
5. Bake until the pancake rises and the edges are slightly browned, about 17 minutes. Working quickly, remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle the powdered sugar on the pancake until it is evenly covered. I do this with a small fine-meshed sieve. Return to the oven until the edges of the dutch baby are golden brown, about 3 minutes.
6. Slide pancake onto a plate and slice in half. Sprinkle with peach slices, raspberries, and blackberries. Drizzle with Nutella and with additional maple syrup, if desired. Devour right away.

Process photos

Tips

Sources of sodium

• Eggs
• Milk

Approximate sodium intake per serving: 101 mg

• 70 mg from the eggs, which have 70 mg per 1 egg (50g) serving
• 31.25 mg from the milk, which has 125 mg per 1 cup (240mL) serving

• These values are calculated from the nutritional labels of the ingredients I used

Modifications

• Increase the sodium

  If you’re not strict about your sodium intake, add a pinch of salt to the dough when adding the other spices.

• Butter amount

  Dutch baby recipes typically call for 2 tablespoons of butter, but I only use enough to coat the pan, which is about 1/2 tablespoon.

• Toppings

  The traditional dutch baby has just the powdered sugar and a drizzle of freshly squeezed lemon as toppings. Half of an apricot instead of a peach is also nice if it’s ripe, and strawberries are tasty, too. I sometimes use blueberries, but I slice them in half when I do so they’re easier to stab with my fork. Sliced figs would also be very nice if they’re in season.

• 9-inch skillet

  When I make this for myself, I make it in the 9-inch cast iron skillet. I still use two eggs, but I use 1/3 cup of flour and whole milk each, and I half all of the other ingredients. I know I said that a 9-inch dutch baby could serve two people in the past, but ours hasn’t served two since we got our 12-inch skillet, and I don’t believe it ever will again.

Handy tools

• 12-inch cast iron skillet

  We have this preseasoned skillet (Lodge 12-inch Cast-Iron Skillet, in case the link ever breaks), which comes with a handy silicone holder in case you’re as prone as me to burning yourself if the possibility arises.

• A batter bowl with a spout

  Having a batter bowl with a spout is very helpful whenever you need to pour anything liquidy. Ours (Le Creuset Stoneware 2-Quart Batter Bowl) predictably gets lots of use.

• A large fish turner

  Our large fish turner (OXO Good Grips Fish Turner) makes getting the pancake out of the skillet super easy, even when our skillet is not perfectly seasoned and the pancake sticks in one pesky spot. We also use it when cooking anything else that’s fragile, like fried eggs or fish.

• Maple syrup container

  Our maple syrup container is handmade by Marianne Chénard, a ceramics artist in Montréal. We got ours from a boutique in Montréal, Gaïa ceramique, where they sometimes sell imperfect pieces at a discount. But we’ve also bought ‘perfect’ versions of this at full price as gifts. The container fits a 540 mL can of maple syrup perfectly, and between all of the dutch babies and granola we make with maple syrup, our container gets a ton of use.

Did you make this?

• If you recreate this recipe, I’d love to know! Leave a comment here and tag @alickofsalt on social media.