Strawberry Pop Ups
The Strawberry season is here! I love to take my grandkids out to the You Pick farm and teach them about where our food comes from. Somehow it always tastes better when you pick it yourself!
Fresh Strawberries Right Out of the Field
My daughter loves the Dutch Baby pancakes at the Original Pancake House. She gets it with the gooey apples and cinnamon butter, but I wanted to try something that was lighter and fewer calories. I started testing and looking at recipes that were online for a Dutch Baby and learned from each one that I tried.
A Dutch Baby is similar to a Popover - one of my favorite food groups. I call this a Pop Up because when you do it in a cast iron pan, the batter pops up along the sides giving you the perfect vessel for almost anything sweet or savory. I can’t wait to try this when peaches are in season, I’m also thinking it would be fantastic with basil, fresh tomatoes, and a balsamic glaze.
First Attempt - Didn’t get the sides on it because ingredients were cold
Second try - lacked flavor and using a colder pan made the bottom buckle.
Success! Great flavor and height, and it couldn’t be easier to make.
This is a true Lazy Cook recipe. All you need is a blender and a cast iron pan, and even though it is super easy to make, it’s a show-stopper when it comes out of the oven.
INGREDIENTS
1/4 cup milk at room temperature
2 eggs at room temperature
1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup sliced fresh strawberries
Powdered sugar
DIRECTIONS
Put your cast iron skillet (we liked an 8” one for this recipe) into the oven, and preheat to 425 degrees. Gather all of your ingredients and let them come to room temperature.
When the oven is heated to 425 degrees, take the skillet out and put the butter in it to melt. While it is melting, blend milk, eggs, flour, and vanilla together in a blender and set aside. Swirl the butter in the pan coating the bottom and sides, then pour in the batter.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until your pop-up is golden brown. If the center is still not cooked, reduce the heat to 300 degrees and bake until the bottom is golden as well.
Remove from the oven, fill with the sliced strawberries, and top with powdered sugar. I also like to drizzle a little bit of pure maple syrup on top.
Serve right in the skillet and enjoy!
LESSONS LEARNED
Heating the skillet ahead of time is critical to the pop-up popping up. We found that a cast iron skillet works best.
Make sure that all of your ingredients are at room temperature - it makes a big difference in how high your pop-up gets. When we used eggs and milk out of the refrigerator the pop-up was flat.
To do a savory version replace the vanilla with seasoned olive oil or your favorite spices. Sprinkle with grated parmesan.