I have a bag of corn meal that I use to bake pizza, so that it comes off the peel without sticking. What else can you do with corn meal? Hmmm… There is this recipe for corn meal pancakes right on the bag. So let’s see what I need… OK, I’m out of baking soda (I guess I made to many pretzels lately), but I can probably get by without, there is enough baking powder in the recipe so that it should not matter that much. I don’t have buttermilk, but I have saco cultured Buttermilk Blend, so that’s not a problem either. Other than that, I have everything: corn meal, flour, eggs, oil, salt.

By replacing the buttermilk with the dry stuff, I have to modify the recipe a bit, and I keep telling myself: Don’t forget the eggs!

The batter is done, I start baking the pancakes, and I start noticing that they are not quite the way I imagined them… But I manage to get nicely brown pancakes after a while. While I bake the last batch it hits me: I forgot the eggs. Doh!

But, there is not much that a bit of fresh fruit and a lot of maple syrup cannot fix:

The pancakes were a bit flat (flatter than your usual pancake or Kansas), but once soaked in maple syrup quite tasty. But I guess next time I’ll remember the eggs…

Just in case you don’t know what a Dutch baby is, check out the Wikipedia definition. So, it’s the Pennsylvania Dutch again who can be blamed for confusing the culinary language My recipe is more along the lines of an apple pancake than a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch baby.

Here is what you need:

• 1 apple
• 3 eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 cup flour
• a pinch of salt
• 3 table spoons unsalted butter
• sugar (regular or confectioners)

Preheat the oven to 450F. Spray a 9in pie pan (I use glass) with cooking spray and add about two table spoons of butter to the pan. Place the pie pan on the middle rack in the oven.

Peal, core, quarter and slice the apple.Heat the remaining butter in a non-stick pan and heat on medium heat.Add the sliced apple and cook until starting to get translucent.

When the butter in the pie pan is melted, move the apple from the saute pan to the pie pan and place back in the oven.

Mix the eggs, milk, salt and flour in a bowl.

After the apples were in the oven for about five minutes, pour the batter into the pie pan and cook for 20-25 minutes.

Check after about 15 minutes and turn the pie pan if one side gets too dark.

Remove from the oven when the sides are brown.

Move to a plate and sprinkle some sugar over the Dutch baby. Most recipes call for confectioners sugar, but I prefer the crunchiness of regular (organic cane) sugar. Serve with a nice cup of cappuccino for breakfast.

The same recipe, but with asparagus, tomatoes, onions and some sweet pepper instead of the apples also makes a very nice dinner.