This baked German apple pancake is very light and fluffy like a soufflé but like custard on the inside. It’s all done in one skillet, from stove top to oven. The sweet, cinnamon-spiced apples are sautéed and then baked, caramelizing their edges and offering great flavor and texture. Makes a wonderful addition to your brunch menu or as a dessert served with vanilla ice cream. This is another great recipe from Cooks Illustrated but once again we substituted the butter with our lemon-fused olive oil to make it a little healthier. Experiment with our Persian Lime or Blood Orange flavored olive oils too! Let us know what you think.
INGREDIENTS
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs
- 2/3 cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons Olive This! Lemon Olive Oil
- 1¼ pound Braeburn or Granny Smith apples (about 4 small to medium apples)
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- confectioner’s sugar for dusting
DIRECTIONS
Peel and chop the apples into ½ to ¾ inch pieces. Set aside. Place the oven rack in the upper-middle position and preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.
Add the dry ingredients (½ cup of flour, 1 tablespoon of sugar and ½ teaspoon of salt) into a medium bowl and whisk to combine.
For the wet ingredients, add to a second bowl the 2 eggs, 2/3 cup of milk and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Whisk to combine.
Pour the liquid mixture into the dry ingredients and whisk thoroughly to remove any lumps, about 20-30 seconds. Set aside.
Using an ovenproof 10-inch skillet (preferably non-stick) heat the 2 tablespoons of lemon olive oil over medium-high heat until oil shimmers. Carefully add the apples (watch for splattering), the ¼ cup of brown sugar, and the ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon. Stir well. Continue to sauté the apples until they’re golden brown (about 10 minutes) stirring frequently.
Pour the prepared batter around and over the cooked apples; work quickly.
Transfer the skillet into the oven and immediately lower the temperature to 425 degrees. Bake until the edges of the pancake puff up above the rim of the skillet and brown, about 18 minutes. Starting at 500 degrees and then reducing the oven temperature to 425 degrees works best in giving the batter the quick rise it needs. From this point forward, start wearing your oven mitts! The skillet handle gets extremely hot and, well, we forgot (but you only forget once).
Using oven mitts, remove skillet from oven. The puffiness of the pancake will reduce as it cools. Run a spatula around the inside edges of the skillet and underneath the pancake to loosen as much as possible.
Carefully flip the skillet inverting the German apple pancake onto a serving platter. Dust with confectioner’s sugar and serve with warm maple syrup.
MAKES 4 SERVINGS
Have a comment? We’d love to hear from you. Have you tried this dish? Do you have a variation that you think others will enjoy? Leave us a comment below.
This was wonderful! Very easy to make and absolutely delicious. The whole family, including the toddler, loved it. The only hiccup involved the same mistake you made about the oven mitt- I was even thinking about not grabbing the handle! But I will not make that mistake again the next time I fix this- and there will definitely be a next time.
So glad you liked this, Jen. Our kids LOVE this too, especially the caramelized bits all over the top. Sorry about the scalding hot handle. Here’s a trick we use whenever we make this: as soon as the skillet goes into the oven, we tuck the oven mitt around the handle of the oven door. That way, no matter who gets the pancake out of the oven, we are reminded to put on the mitt! Thanks for the comments.