No one can miss the sight, smoke and smell of sizzling sweet molten lava from the apple pancake. It’s a special blend of caramelized sugar over the apples. I bet you cannot satisfy your ever-lashing tongue with a single piece of it.
Many of us know that Chicago’s pancake house is famous for its apple pancakes. Baked apple pancake is an old recipe from European over-baked pancakes. Batter is poured over the saute d apples, which caramelize during baking.
From Germany we have pfannkuchen, the billowy German pancakes, or Dutch babies, sprinkled generously with confectioners’ sugar and spritzed with lemon juice. From Australia we have kaiserschmarrn, and from Sweden we have ugnspannkaka, also made by pouring batter over apples or savory ingredients.
Original Pancake House franchises in the Chicago area; Ray Walker owns only five of them. Same recipe and techniques are used at all of his and are a trade secret. There are a total of 106 franchises around the country.
As, Christopher Koetke, dean of culinary arts at Kendall College says, these apple pancakes are indeed ‘quintessential’.
Techniques and ingredients are very essential to prepare an apple pancake at your place. Baking a pancake requires two steps allow the pancake batter to set up at low temperature (250 degrees) and after 30 minutes hike the temperature to 450 degrees and heat it for 15 minutes.
Ingredients of batter
4 eggs
1/2 cup non fat milk
2 tbsp whipping cream
¾ cup bread flour
1 1/2 teaspoons of wheat gluten, optional (will help in fluffiness)
1 tbsp confectioner’s sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Apples and cinnamon sugar
3 tbsp plus 1 1/2 teaspoons of unsalted butter
2 granny smith apples (apples), peeled, cored, cut into ¼ inch slices
3 tbsp plus 2 teaspoons of dark brown sugar
2 tbsp plus 1 1/2 teaspoons of superfine sugar
2 ¾ teaspoons of ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon plus 1/8 teaspoon cornstarch
Preparation
1. Beat eggs with a whisker, add milk and cream, and beat until they blend well.
2. Mix the flour, gluten, confectioners’ sugar, salt, and nutmeg in a bowl.
3. Add flour mixture to egg mixture and beat it until blended.
4. Set this mixture aside for about 15 minutes.
5. In preheated oven (300 degree) place your oiled skillet with apples in it.
6. Cook until these apples turn golden red (for about 4 minutes).
7. Stir brown sugar, superfine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Sift the cornstarch into the mix; blend thoroughly with a fork.
8. Melt remaining 2 tbsp plus 1 1/2 teaspoons of the butter in a small saucepan.
9. Slowly pour butter into the cinnamon-sugar mixture, stirring with a fork until it resembles a streusel(a crumb like topping for coffee cakes and rich breads, consisting of flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon, and sometimes chopped nutmeats) like topping
10. Spread the mixture over the bottom of the skillet. Layer your apples (without piling up in the middle) over the sugar mixture to cover the bottom of the skillet.
11.Finally pour batter over the apples. And bake them at 250 degrees.
12. Remove them from oven and cover it with foil.
13. Now bake your pancake at 500 and reduce the temperature to 450 degrees for another 15 minutes.
Via: ChicagoTribune
