Friday, August 14, 2009

Pannu Kakku

I went to a bachelorette party last month (congratulations, Andrea!) where there was a campfire, dancing girls around said campfire, lots of alchohol, friends and a ton of good food. After rolling out of bed the next morning with a fuzzy, hazy feeling in my head, one of the dancing girls suggested making pannu kakku. It's a Finnish oven pancake. With Kevin being Finnish, I couldn't understand why I had never heard of this delicacy but apparently, neither had he. "What kind of Finn are you that you've never heard of this?" I scolded after I googled the recipe a couple of weeks later, made it and watched him wolf down a couple plates. But his mouth was too full to answer and after a couple of "hmpphs" and frantics gestures with his fork in the air, I concluded that my Finn liked the "pancake." It is a cross between a custard, a popover and french toast. Learn from my mistake and don't forget to grease the pan! Here is the recipe. How do the Finns say "bon appetit?" Maybe it's "hmpph" coupled with fork waving?
4 cups of milk
4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar (I was out of sugar and used brown sugar)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon almond extract (you could use vanilla if you want instead)1 and 1/2 cups of flour4 tablespoons melted butter

Beat the eggs and add the milk, sugar, salt, almond and flour. Mix well, then add the melted butter and mix until blended. The batter will be very thin. Grease a 9x13 pan and pour the batter into it. Bake at 400 degrees for about an hour or until the custard is set and top is browned. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve with warm syrup and sausage.