The giant pancake that feeds everyone

With Shrove Tuesday upon us, I am forced to face my annual pancake day gripe. It is, inevitably, the cook’s gripe: standard crèpe-like pancakes should be eaten as soon as they are cooked, each doled out to waiting mouths as soon as it’s ready. Yes, recipes tell you you can keep them warm in a low oven, but doing that tends them towards the rubbery and luke-warm. This means that the cook is standing at the stove ladling batter while everyone else eats. As a greedy cook, I resent this. But there is a pancake solution: the Dutch baby.

The name does not point to a Holland heritage: instead, the dish is named after the Pennsylvanian Dutch, a group of German-speaking immigrants to America. The Dutch baby is made with a similar batter to normal pancakes, but is baked in the oven, and one recipe stands as an entire meal for two hungry people or, with generous toppings, up to four.