Buttery Dutch Baby with Warm Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Level up weekend waffles and showcase your inner kitchen wizardry! This buttery dutch baby served out of a sizzling cast-iron skillet is the ultimate luxury-comfort food. Let’s turn a handful of common ingredients that you almost certainly already have, into a big billowy edible pillow complete with a thin, golden-brown crispy shell, that just begs to be pulled apart and gobbled up by hand, straight out of the oven. If you can wait, its undulating pockets are perfect for folding in spoonfuls of just-cooked warm strawberry rhubarb jam and whipped creme fraiche.
While a dutch baby looks complicated, it’s deceptively easy to make – making it the perfect lazy breakfast or brunch food. A custardy vanilla batter is poured into a hot cast iron skillet with browned butter, and baked into one big puff pancake for sharing. Here’s the best base recipe for a sweet dutch baby. Choose whatever sweet topics you like!
All the Ways to Maximize Puff in Your Dutch Baby
Prep for Max Puff
- Prep: Bring eggs to room temp. If you don’t have time to bring eggs to room temp: soak in warm water and test egg temp before mixing.
- Pan: Use a 10×10 skillet. Put the pan in the oven first, then start making the batter and jam. A really hot pan will both melt the butter quickly and help prevent the butter from burning from melting too slowly.
- Milk: Lightly warm the milk – not too much that it cooks the egg, just slightly warmer than room temp. No lumpy batter, and maximum poofage.
- Flour, Eggs, and Milk Mixture: First, slowly incorporate the flour into the eggs, and then do the same with the barely warm milk into the egg-flour mixture. THEN blend with the immersion blender and get lots of bubbles going!
- Rest: If using Einkorn all-purpose flour, let the batter rest for 10 minutes. Don’t skip this step!
Take Your Batter To the Cloud: Bake For Max Puff
- Blend: After resting, give the batter one final whirl with the immersion blender (or blender if you’re using that instead) right before pouring the batter into the pan. All those air bubbles will help lift and puff!
- Butter: Put the butter into the pan in the oven – don’t take the pan out of the oven to butter it, because the pan will lose some heat. Close oven door to finish melting butter. The milk solids in butter can burn quickly, so be ready to pour batter a few seconds after closing the oven door.
- Pour and Swirl (optional): Bring the batter to the oven, like you did the butter. Pour the batter slowly into the hot pan, swirling the pan around -or- swirling the batter around and back onto itself. This will create more folds, which will create more puff and pockets to tuck jam and whipped creme fraiche into!
- Oven: Limit opening the oven door as much as possible. Make use of the oven’s internal light instead of opening the oven door to peek. Don’t open the door for peeks!
- Presentation: The dutch baby balloons in the oven and then sinks after removing it from the oven. Absolutely be sure to gather your people at the table for a dramatic stage-right entrance. Have the toppings and everything out and ready before pulling the dutch baby out of the oven.
Warm Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Simmer 1.5 cups strawberries, 1 cup chopped rhubarb, and 3 Tbsp sugar (I use sucanat), in a pan for about 10 minutes, or just until the fruit softens. Ladel over the hot dutch baby and turn the leftovers into freezer jam.
Creme Fraiche Whipped Creme
Mix 1 cup heavy whipping cream, 1/3 cup creme fraiche, and 3 Tbsp (heaping) powdered sugar, in a stand mixer until stiff peaks form. Top over hot strawberry rhubarb jam, and adorn with edible flowers if you’re feeling fancy.
Serving and Storage
A dutch baby is best eaten straight from the oven and not re-heated. It’s quite tasty to snack on at room temp throughout the day, pulling a smidge off here and there.
If you must store and reheat it, it can last in the fridge for about three days. But, be forewarned – whoever doesn’t finish this dutch baby before nightfall WILL turn into a pumpkin!
If you’re looking for something to cook ahead of time – make the batter ahead of time and blend again before baking. But if you need to bake ahead of time, choose another recipe. A dutch baby is not that kind of dish.
Classic Dutch Baby Toppings
The dutch baby is absolutely a staple recipe and worth repeating regularly. Keep this as a base recipe for a sweet dutch baby, and change toppings as you like!
- Warm Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
- Creme Fraiche Whipped Cream
- A squeeze of lemon juice and then dust with powdered sugar (a classic!)
- Fresh berries and powdered sugar
- Stewed apples, cinnamon, and sugar
- Butter and maple syrup
Using Einkorn All Purpose Flour in a Dutch Baby
I tested both traditional all-purpose flour, and Einkorn all-purpose flour. Einkorn can be tricky, and getting it to behave like regular all-purpose flour can sometimes be a challenge. I love the taste and nutritional profile of Einkorn, so it was important for me to thoroughly test the recipe with Einkorn so I could confidently recommend this to you.
You can use your flour of choice in this recipe. Traditional all-purpose flour didn’t seem to rise dramatically more than Einkorn, but there was an increase in puff-factor. While bread flour is more processed, it will absolutely result in significantly more puff.
I haven’t tested this with gluten-free flours, but I hear it can be replaced at equal parts – let me know if you try it!
A Word of Encouragement
I promise this recipe gets so much easier the second and third time you make this. It looks like a lot at first, but I did so much recipe testing and wanted to share all the tips I learned to make this recipe pop. It really does become second nature once you get one under your belt (budum ching!)
Equipment
- One 10-inch cast iron skillet See scaled 12-inch skillet recipe for a larger pan.
Ingredients
- 3 large eggs room temp
- 1/2 cup flour (I use Einkorn all-purpose)
- 1/3 cup whole milk room temp
- 1/4 tsp salt (even if butter is salted)
- 1 Tbsp vanilla
- 4 Tbsp butter salted
- 2 tsp sugar (I use Sucanat)
- 1 1/2 cup chopped strawberries
- 1 cup chopped rhubarb
- 3 Tbsp sugar (I use Sucanat)
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 1/3 cup creme fraiche
- 5 Tbsp powdered sugar divided
Instructions
- Put a 10" cast iron skillet in the oven, heat oven to 450°. Allow pan to thoroughly heat while preparing dish.
- In a very small pot, very lightly warm the milk to just above room temp (see notes).
- In a medium bowl, add einkorn flour. Make a well in the middle for the eggs. Use a fork to stab each yolk and slowly incorporate the flour into the eggs (see einkorn notes). Whisk together until creamy.
- Add warm milk slowly, while continually stirring the batter. Add vanilla, sea salt. Stir.
- Use immersion blender to ensure batter is well mixed, which will also add air bubbles into the batter (a blender works fine, too).
- Let batter rest for 10 minutes.
- Prepare the strawberry rhubarb jam by adding chopped strawberries and rhubarb into a small pan, along with the sugar. Simmer on low-medium and stir frequently until the fruit softens and releases its juices and mixes with the sugar. Set aside.
- Prepare plates, forks, knives, jam, and any other toppings at eating table. Set a trivet on the eating table for easy transfer of hot pan for fast presentation and easy serving.
- Cut up butter into 4 individual knobs for faster melting in the pan.
- After 10 minutes rest, open oven door and quickly drop butter knobs into the hot pan without completely bringing the pan out of the oven. Shut the oven door as quickly as possible to keep heat in. Use oven light to wait for butter to melt and lightly brown (don't burn the butter!).
- Give batter one final immersion blend to add more air bubbles. Open oven door, pull oven rack out for easy access to the hot pan, and pour the batter directly in the pan. Don't worry about getting every last drop of the batter out of the bowl. It's more important to close the oven door quickly.
- Cook for 14 minutes and use oven light to check readiness; don't open door prior to this. It may need 1-2 more minutes to brown and finish rising before removing from oven.
- Prepare creme fraiche whipped creme by mixing heavy whipping cream, creme fraiche, and powdered sugar in a stand mixer until peaks form.
- Make sure everyone's gathered and ready to see this dutch baby at its peak beauty! Remove dutch baby from oven, set on trivet. Dust with 2 Tbsp powdered sugar.
- Serve with warm jam and creme fraiche whipped creme for the ultimate melty combination.