Yesterday was one of those days in life you wish you could erase.  It was where I had more than one moment of questionable parenting decisions where I mumbled to myself, “I suck at this.”  Don’t pity me, we all have these feelings I am sure.  Right?

And to ice the cake of many layers at this point, the bread I chose to make had to rise over night.  With a sigh, I popped the dough in the refrigerator and flipped the pages of my borrowed book to pick again.  My miserable self knew that I indeed, MUST have bread!

I settled on an amazing recipe for a dutch baby.  Essentially it is a giant popover with an apple filling.  What is not to love?  It teeters on the edge of not bread-dom but if you taste it you will realize you could care less.  Bread, dessert, pastry, whatever you would like to call it, it is delicious.

I would like to include that this is an easy recipe and that it is fool-proof.  But giving the circumstances of my day and the state of my brain functioning, it turned out to be quite a frustrating little creation.  But, I assure you, if you can follow directions at all you will succeed.  Keep in mind the batter will be lumpy and that the recipe includes MILK.  So, by all means don’t try to mix it in after its been in the oven for a few minutes…. it just doesn’t work that way.

Dutch Baby 

Adapted from The Bread Bible

Mix 3 tablespoons sugar, 1 cup flour, and a bit of salt with 2 tablespoons melted butter.   The batter will be pea sized balls of dough at this point.  Mix in 2 eggs and two egg whites with a cup of milk and put them all together.  Heat up an 11 inch cast iron skillet in a 425 degree oven for 3 minutes with 2 tbs. of butter coating the whole thing.  Take it out and quickly pour the batter in.  Cook for 15 minutes, then lower the temp to 350 for an additional 30.  In the last 10 minutes of cooking poke a few holes in the monstrously rising beast to cook the center a bit.

While she is a baking away, saute up 2 pounds of apples in some butter, cinnomon and nutmeg until just tender.

Take the baby out, scoop it onto a platter, and top it with apples.   Whip up some cream too, if you have some.

So, I turned the lights out on such a discouraging day.  I have no plan on how to improve my mama status at this juncture.  But hopefully some dutch baby helped.