Pancakes & Petals

Do tulip petals make you think of pancakes? Well, in a way these spring flowers remind me of a special pancake. A year ago my sister-in-law and I visited Pella, Iowa for the Tulip Festival. Pella is a small town south-east of Des Moines that has a big celebration with parades, street washing, costumed wooden shoe dancers, and - tulips, to commemorate their Dutch heritage. Many years ago I visited the Netherlands and since then tulips have been a favorite flower.

After S-I-L and I toured the replicate of a Dutch flour mill, we asked the miller for a recommendation of which of the many street vendors to choose for lunch. His quick answer was the Kiwanis wagon with Poffertjes. We weren't sure what that was, but he was very positive in his recommendation and said they were served with strawberries, so it had to be good.

Well, it turns out that Poffertjes are small, puffed pancakes with a light, spongey texture. Typically they are served with powdered sugar and butter. Ours with strawberries and powdered sugar were delicious.

Recently, my daughter was describing a unique pan a friend of hers had gotten for a wedding gift. It was a aebleskiver (danish) pan or a poffertjes (dutch) pan for small puffed pancakes. We checked on-line at our favorite gourmet kitchen store and found it also had a unique price tag! But, while we were shopping the outlet stores in Allen, Texas, we found a similar pan for $9.99 - in the 'as seen on TV' section! At that price, we both had to get one.  The pans are of cast iron and look like a small skillet with 7 little bowls or indentations for the pancakes.

So, we've been enjoying poffertjes/puffed pancakes. An easy recipe is the Aunt Jemina pancake mix one. 1 cup of mix, 3/4 cup of milk, 1 tablespoon oil, and 1 egg. Melt a little butter in each indentation and pour in about a tablespoon of batter. Cook just like pancakes, when it is done on one side, flip it over in the indentation and the batter on the top will now cook on the bottom. It helps to have a wooden skewer to turn the pancakes.

For extra yummy treat, put a dollop of Nutella in the center of the dough as the bottom first cooks. - Yummm - like chocolate pancakes! Or add your own filling such as apple pie filling or applesauce. And, as I mentioned before, puffed pancakes are good with fresh strawberries or other fruit.

Someone asked me how many of these you could eat - the answer is 7. At a time, anyway. That's the number of indentations in the pan!