I'm Back and moving on to Germany in My Pancake Travels

So, I'm finally back to my worldly pancake travels and blogging.  My recent pancake travels have reminded me how "interesting" they can be!

Before I jump right into the pancake blogging, here's a little info. about why my travels came to such an abrupt halt.  The last year has been extremely busy and hectic for me.  In addition to continuing to care for a very sick dog (see this post if you are interested in learning more),  A few months later, I was given a new role also, a role in which I wore (and continue to wear) many different hats, but most of those hats had a technology emphasis. So when I wasn't caring for my dogs, I was a pretty big workaholic for much of the time I was gone.

Then last November, I lost my Mac to the cancer tumor that was in his chest.  It was one of the toughest things I've had to go through because despite the fact that he was still taking care of his needs and going for walks, he was no longer able to eat food (the tumor in his chest had completely closed off his esophagus).  Here's one of the last pictures I took of him:

Now a little over a year later, I am finally ready to continue my pancake travels.  So, without further ado, let's "fly" to Germany.

In my research for German pancakes, I kept getting lots of recipes for "Dutch Baby" pancakes.  However, I was pretty certain these weren't what traditional German pancakes were.  I was just about to give up and make a Dutch Baby pancake for Germany when I stumbled across Spoonfuls of Germany, a German cuisine blog by Nadia Hassani.  It was here that I discovered my hunch was right.  Germans don't eat "Dutch Baby" pancakes.  Instead, their pancakes are somewhere in between a crepe and an American style pancake.  My recipe for German pancakes comes from Nadia's blog. You can view it directly at her blog by clicking here, or you can continue to read and find it below (NOTE:  In the pictures you'll see below, the recipe has been doubled because I had company joining me on my German pancake travels).

Here is what you'll need for German pancakes:

1 cup of all purpose flour
2 large eggs
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup of milk (I used whole milk since I had some in the fridge that needed to be used, but any milk should do)
1/4 cup of seltzer water (I used club soda)
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Filling and topping:

sugar (for sprinkling on top)
cinnamon (for sprinkling on top)
sweet filling (such as a fruit compote, Nutella, etc.)
5 tablespoons of butter (or some other fat for cooking the pancake, I used olive oil)

For my filling, I decided to use a cocoa almond spread with chopped roasted almonds.  So the first thing I did was roast up my almonds in a frying pan, and because I like them quite toasty, you'll see they got a bit dark in spots.

Set the almonds aside and allow them to cool before chopping.  Next mix together all of the ingredients for the pancakes.

Using a whisk or electric mixer, stir together all of the ingredients until you have a relatively smooth batter.  Once everything is mixed up, get your pan out and begin heating it up.  Since this was a thinner batter, I elected to use my crepe pan for easy swirling of the batter as I added it to the pan.  Add your fat (1 tablespoon of butter or spray the pan with oil), then measure out 1/3-1/2 cup of batter onto the pan and swirl it around the bottom so that it is completely covered. 

Fry until the top of the pancake is set, and the bottom is slightly brown.

The pancake in the picture above is almost ready to flip.  Once it's flipped, briefly cook the other side (about 1 minute), remove from heat, and place on a plate.  Keep the pancake warm by putting a lid over it or placing it in a slightly warm oven.  

Continue making the pancakes in the manner above until all of the batter is used up. If you are using butter as your fat, you'll probably want to wipe the pan in between pancakes so that they don't taste like burnt butter.  I got eight pancakes after doubling the ingredients listed above.  If you use the ingredients above as listed, you'll probably only get around 4.

Once all of the pancakes are made, spread with your filling of choice.

Finally, roll the pancake up and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.

I added an onion and cheese frittata to the meal for protein, some fruit, and some German style potato salad.

Despite the fact that I made the potato salad up the night before so it would be ready to eat with my meal, I totally forgot to put it out for the meal, so no pictures.  However, I did eat it later, and it was quite delicious.  In fact the entire meal was delicious!  A special thanks to my special guests for joining us for German pancakes!