Puffed Pancake

Talk about an easy recipe. It's quick, and curbs the cravings for carbs, butter, salt, and sweetness. I'll admit it, I had one of these bad boys before I went to bed last night.

My sister and I used to make these back when we were kids. We had some interesting breakfasts when we were younger--I remember pan-fried hot dogs and frozen chimichangas also being on the list of breakfasts. But meals for kids in the early A.M. were rather limited when your mom didn't buy things like sugar cereal, peanut butter, or white bread.

I still make this pancake whenever I get the urge for something hot and quick. It literally takes 5 minutes to make and another 10 to bake.

All you need is flour, milk, butter, vanilla, and an egg. You barely need to measure.

The very, very first thing you want to do is turn your oven on. The temperature is 450; by the time it's preheated, your pancake will be ready to go in.

Grab an oven-safe pan (nonstick or not, but nonstick seems to work best for these.) Make doubly sure that your pan is oven-safe, though. Don't want melted plastic from the handle to get inside your oven. Let the pan preheat inside the oven along with your butter.

Now onto the batter. There's no sifting, beating, separating, nothing. Just put everything into a bowl and stir.

Once everything is whisked together, pull your pan out of the oven (use an oven mitt if you like the skin on your hand!). Make sure the butter is coating every inside surface of the pan.

Now just set it in the oven and walk away. Go do something else. Make some coffee. Feed the kids. Let the dogs out. Because you don't want to look inside the oven. It's a puffed pancake, after all.

Okay. Because I love you, I'll show you what it looks like, halfway through. So you can resist the temptation of looking when you make your own.

And because I had the oven open for so incredibly long in order to capture that single picture, my pancake failed to rise up the sides of the pan. Oops.

I don't even care. It still tasted amazing. I like to top mine simply, with some jam or jelly. You could butter it, syrup it, dust it with powdered sugar, or serve it with fresh fruit. You could make it savory by adding sausage or bacon, or serving it in place of a tortilla for tacos. Ooh, you could cook the bacon or sausage in the pan and use the drippings instead of butter. Then you could pour the batter over the top and top it with scrambled eggs when the pancake comes out of the oven. Yum.

Recipe: Puffed Pancake
This makes enough for one person and can be made in an 8 or 10 inch pan. It can be easily doubled in a 10 inch pan with no trouble. The amount of butter can stay the same.
1/2 c. flour
1/2 c. milk
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
2 tbsp. butter

Preheat oven to 450F. Put butter into oven-safe skillet and place the skillet inside the oven while you prepare the batter.

Mix the flour, milk, vanilla, and egg together.

Once oven is preheated, carefully pull out the pan and swirl butter so all of the pan's surface is coated. Carefully pour in the pancake mix.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until pancake is golden brown and puffy. Serve immediately.


P.S. If you haven't noticed, there's a new page linked to Kim Chee Casserole, in the upper left-hand corner called Recipes At A Glance. It's simply a list of all the recipes I've posted so far, sorted into subject so they're easy to find.

I wanted to add a feature with thumbnail images that led to the different links too but have yet to find a photo editing program that works for me. It might be a while. ;)