Tag: cheese

Mini sweet and savoury Dutch babies

This week I find myself in a bit of a challenging situation. I’m staying with my boyfriend for a few days. That’s not the challenging bit…it’s the fact that he owns no baking apparatus. No scales, no mixer, not even any oven gloves. He doesn’t mind this arrangement, but I’ve got a baking blog to uphold.

I could have brought some of my own equipment across the length of the country, but I decided not to. Instead I am going to make recipes to the best of my ability, following my baker’s instinct, and then guesstimate the quantities in my recipes. Not only that, I decided to make a recipe today which I’ve never made before.

Mini Dutch babies

Dutch babies, or Dutch pancakes, are a cross between pancakes and Yorkshire puddings. The cooking process is the same as for Yorkshires: you heat a muffin tin in the oven, pour in some melted butter, and the pancake batter, which should puff in the oven. I’ve never made a Yorkshire pudding before, but I’ve certainly made pancakes enough times to know what a pancake batter should look like.

I suppose what I’m trying to show with this recipe is that you can create something tasty (and dare I say, a bit elegant in a chunky sort of way?) with very little equipment and few ingredients. The batter itself consists only of butter, flour, milk and eggs, and then the fillings are up to you.

I decided to create a sweet and savoury version, filling one half of the batch with garlicky wilted spinach, goats cheese, and a red pepper sauce. This was inspired by my travels in Montenegro, where I ate a lot of Dalmatian stew: wilted chard with garlic and soft chunks of boiled potato. I couldn’t find any chard in the supermarket but spinach works nicely as a substitute.

Mini Dutch babies with goats cheese, spinach and red pepper

I decided to simply top the others with some sliced berries and yoghurt flavoured with a little cinnamon and maple syrup. These would be great if you were doing breakfast for a lot of people (less time consuming than making endless pancakes over a stove). If you choose to make sweet ones only, add one tablespoon of sugar into your pancake batter.

Mini Dutch babies with yoghurt and berries

The Dutch babies, once baked, are golden and crispy on the outside, but soft in the middle. Mine didn’t all develop a dip in the middle as expected. I hesitated to hollow them out myself because that seemed wasteful, but it’s necessary if you want to place your filling inside.

It was great to try something new, and I’ll definitely be making this recipe again. I think they could be nice rolled in cinnamon sugar after baking. Make this recipe yourself if you’re keen to try something new, or if you’re stuck somewhere without any scales.

Gluten Free Dutch Babies (makes 12):

1 mugful gluten free self raising flour

4 tbsps melted butter or alternative (I used sunflower oil spread)

3 eggs

1 mugful milk or alternative

1 tbsp sugar (if making sweet pancakes only)

Savoury (makes 12):

150g soft goats cheese

125g marscarpone

1 clove garlic

200g spinach

Red pepper dip

Sweet (makes 12):

Berries of your choice (I used strawberries and blueberries)

Unsweetened Greek full-fat yoghurt

Maple syrup

Cinnamon

  1. Place a muffin tin in your oven and set it to 200 degrees fan.
  2. Start by preparing your fillings/garnishes. For the savoury fillings: finely mince the garlic clove and place it in a frying pan with a little oil on medium heat until the garlic becomes fragrant. Add the spinach and stir until it is wilted. Place the spinach into a sieve and press some of the water out with a spoon. Set the spinach aside for later.
  3. In a separate bowl, mix the goats cheese with the marscarpone and season with salt and pepper. Set aside.
  4. If you’re making sweet pancakes, mix some yoghurt with maple syrup and cinnamon to taste. Slice the berries and set aside.
  5. To make the pancakes whisk two tablespoons of the melted butter with the other ingredients.
  6. Carefully bring the hot muffin tin out of the oven and pour some of the remaining butter into each section. Then pour the batter into the tin so that each section is about two thirds full.
  7. Bake for 15 minutes. They should be puffy, golden and crisp. When they’re done, they may be a bit greasy from the butter, so put them on a piece of kitchen paper to soak up any grease before filling them.

Cheddar pepper flapjacks

I had the idea for this bake in the best place to have ideas: the shower.  I decided that I wanted to bake something savoury so that my family and I would not be drowning in cake come Christmastime (although come to think of it that sounds like a great way to go). 

For whatever reason, I recalled the cheesy, savoury flapjacks that my mum used to make me for my school bag.  I know that you might be confused and mildly disgusted by this idea, but once you get your head (and your mouth) around these treats I think you’ll change your mind (unless you’re a cheese hater, but I don’t tend to socialise with those sorts of people).  

Cheddar pepper flapjack with pumpkin seeds

Some things I like about this bake (besides the fact that it’s delicious) is that it’s versatile, low cost and easy.  I know that my last recipe was bit complex.  This one is definitely for beginners, students short on money who want to make their own snacks, and anybody who’s ever wanted to eat oats glued together with cheese. 

Cheddar pepper flapjack with pumpkin seeds

I added pumpkin seeds, mostly because we had them in the cupboard and I thought they’d add a nice bit of colour.  I had the idea to position some seeds on the top; I think they look a bit like fir trees (you might disagree, I won’t blame you).  Upon munching my first helping, I also realised that the seeds add a nice vegetal freshness to a treat which could be too rich otherwise.  The herbs and paprika also give the flapjacks a savoury depth as well as adding to their golden colour.  

Cheddar pepper flapjack with pumpkin seeds

Feel free to add different seeds and flavourings, or even try a different hard cheese.  Great for lunchboxes and picnics, and, I like to think, leaving out for Father Christmas on the night before Christmas.  He’s probably fed up of mince pies by now.   

Cheddar Pepper Flapjacks:

360g pure oats (I use these because I’m gluten intolerant, if you’re not then use regular oats)

340g cheddar

3 eggs

125g butter

2 tsp dried mixed herbs

2 tsp smoked paprika

2 tsp ground black pepper

Handful of pumpkin seeds

  1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees and line a large roasting dish with baking paper.  Personally, I like the baking paper which has foil on the other side so it’s easy to mould to the pan. 
  2. Grate the cheese.  Please don’t hurt your fingers when you do this.  If little lumps of cheese fall in, it’s ok.  These will be bonus pieces and make the flapjacks even better.
  3. Gently melt the butter.
  4. Once the butter is melted, mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl.
  5. Put the mixture into the roasting pan.  Spread it out evenly and press it down.  If you wish, you can use seeds to make a pattern on your flapjack as I did.  They will brown a bit in the oven but they’ll still look (and taste) good.
  6. Bake for 35 minutes until the flapjack is golden all over and the sides are shrinking away from the paper.  Enjoy the cheesy smell which fills your kitchen.