A good friend introduced us to this puffy brunch beauty from Edward Espe Brown’s “The Tassajara Bread Book,” (Shambhala Publications, 1995) at a lovely garden party last fall. It’s easy, tastes great and is so like one of those fancy restaurant-baked pancakes that your guests may think you worked a lot harder than you did. Serves 4.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons butter
Juice of one lemon
1 medium apple, cut into wedges
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup milk
3 eggs
A dash of ground cloves
Directions
Preheat oven to 400. Put butter into an 8- or 9-inch round baking dish and heat in oven at 400 for 10 minutes. Do not allow the butter to brown.
Meanwhile, squeeze the lemon juice over apple slices and toss with brown sugar. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, milk and eggs. Whisk briskly until barely together – the batter will be lumpy.
Remove the baking dish from the oven and pour in the batter. Arrange apples in a circle around the edge of the dish and place two or three at the center. Reserve the lemon juice and brown sugar you used to toss the apples and pour it over the top of the fruit and batter.
Bake for 25 minutes, or until firm and puffy. Dust with a sprinkling of ground cloves and serve with warmed pure maple syrup.
Note: If you wish to double the recipe, bake the pancake in a 15-inch pan. The recipe also works well with blueberries standing in for apples.
WINE IDEAS: Set aside the maple syrup and pour a glass of passito di Pantelleria, a dessert wine made from sun-dried moscato grapes on an island off of Sicily. The combination of sweet fruit, honey, brown sugar and spice flavors combined with great acidity make it a terrific pairing to delicate desserts. Donnafugata, Abraxas and Colosi make terrific examples. Tara Q. Thomas
