Apple Dutch Baby

video: Ben Powell music: Matt Bryant titles: Jeff Nitzberg copyright: Elizabeth Winslow

I have always been a little bit of a fool about breakfast.  One morning each week, we revel in these indulgent, stolen hours to do next to nothing, to hole up, to be made new again.  I like to eat childlike things, stay in my pajamas, and balance a plate on my lap amid piles of newspaper pages, fingers sticky with something sweet and drink one too many cups of coffee, the morning carved out of time like a little miracle.

The Dutch Baby too is a little like a miracle, and inspires me to share with you one of my favorite poems (recipe follows).

A Miracle for Breakfast

Elizabeth Bishop

At six o’clock we were waiting for coffee,
waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb
that was going to be served from a certain balcony
–like kings of old, or like a miracle.
It was still dark. One foot of the sun
steadied itself on a long ripple in the river.

The first ferry of the day had just crossed the river.
It was so cold we hoped that the coffee
would be very hot, seeing that the sun
was not going to warm us; and that the crumb
would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle.
At seven a man stepped out on the balcony.

He stood for a minute alone on the balcony
looking over our heads toward the river.
A servant handed him the makings of a miracle,
consisting of one lone cup of coffee
and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb,
his head, so to speak, in the clouds–along with the sun.

Was the man crazy? What under the sun
was he trying to do, up there on his balcony!
Each man received one rather hard crumb,
which some flicked scornfully into the river,
and, in a cup, one drop of the coffee.
Some of us stood around, waiting for the miracle.

I can tell what I saw next; it was not a miracle.
A beautiful villa stood in the sun
and from its doors came the smell of hot coffee.
In front, a baroque white plaster balcony
added by birds, who nest along the river,
–I saw it with one eye close to the crumb–

and galleries and marble chambers. My crumb
my mansion, made for me by a miracle,
through ages, by insects, birds, and the river
working the stone. Every day, in the sun,
at breakfast time I sit on my balcony
with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee.

We licked up the crumb and swallowed the coffee.
A window across the river caught the sun
as if the miracle were working, on the wrong balcony.

Apple Dutch Baby

4 T. butter

2 apples, cored and cut into wedges

1/4 c. brown sugar

¾ c. flour

½ t. salt

4 eggs

2/3 c. milk
1 t. vanilla
Powdered sugar (optional)

Preheat oven to 450°. Melt butter in a 9”–10” cast-iron (or other ovenproof) skillet. Scoop out 2 tablespoons melted butter and reserve. Add the apples to the pan and sauté until they begin to soften and brown. Add brown sugar and stir until sugar melts. Remove from heat and set aside.

Mix flour and salt in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs with milk, vanilla and reserved melted butter. Whisk into flour mixture, stirring just until combined (some lumps will remain). Pour batter over the apples and place in oven. Bake 15–18 minutes, until puffed and golden. Sprinkle with powdered sugar, if desired. Cut into wedges and serve.

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