Breakfast on the Barbecue: Baked Apple Pancake

Despite my profound love of cooking and baking, there is one essential culinary task that I absolutely detest: peeling. I'm painfully slow at it -- we're talking 3-5 minutes for one potato. The good news is, I bought myself a peeler which rests in the palm of my hand and shaves at least a minute off of each potato, apple, carrot, whatever. The bad news? My boyfriend and his roommates only own a dollar store quality peeler--and we were planning on making a baked apple pancake for breakfast two weekends ago.


There's something else: I'm not the most patient person in the world. So when it took me 20 minutes to peel three apples, I was on the verge of tears. We slept in, so my hunger wasn't helping, either. Irrationally frustrated, I was relieved when I finished the apples and walked over to the oven. I was about to preheat the oven when I remembered -- my boyfriend's oven is broken.


Oi. Luckily, I thought to use a cast iron dutch oven and try to barbecue breakfast instead. I am happy to say that my barbecued breakfast turned out beautifully.

The brown sugar forms a bit of caramel on the bottom, while the batter is like clafoutis -- firm, but custard-like. Served with a drizzle of maple syrup, it's a very decadent breakfast that's also perfect for brunch.

I've included oven instructions for the recipe, because for most of you it's probably easier to pop it into the oven than to stick it on the grill. But the barbecue modifications are very simple, and you can find those at the very bottom of the post.

INGREDIENTS

Apples
1/2 stick (1/4 cup) butter (or margarine, if you're at your non-baking boyfriend's house)
3 medium baking apples (I used McIntosh), peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tbsp. maple syrup

Batter
3 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 425F. Melt butter over medium-high heat in an ovenproof frying pan or dutch oven. Add apples, brown sugar, and cinnamon and cook, stirring occasionally, until the apples begin to brown and most of the juices have evaporated, 5 to 7 minutes. Remove pan from heat.

2. Whisk together eggs, milk, flour, and salt until smooth.

3. Spread apples evenly across the bottom of the pan or dutch oven. Pour the batter over the apples. Place the pan in the oven and bake until the pancake is golden and puffed, 18 to 20 minutes.You can also put a knife into the centre of the pancake; if the knife comes out clean, it's done.

4. Remove the pan from the oven and cut into wedges. Serve immediately with a drizzle...or a big splash...of maple syrup.

Serves 4... or 2 really hungry people.

Note: if you do want to barbecue the pancake--say, if you're camping, or your oven's on the fritz--heat the barbecue to 425F as well, and just watch it closely after 15 minutes. Just as with the oven method, when a knife or toothpick inserted into the centre comes out clean, you'll know it's done.

A belated Canada Day photo post

The day after Canada day, my boyfriend's Italian grandparents left for a trip to visit their family back home. The rest of his family (parents, brothers, aunt, uncle, cousin, and him, too) will be following next month. His family threw a "Bon Voyage" party so everyone could get together one last time before the trip, and in typical fashion, they marched out the big guns: their army of homemade barbecues. My boyfriend's family (and friends) are quite handy. Not a single store-bought barbecue was used that day.

As hardcore carnivores, they even roasted a whole lamb. Alright, technically they're still omnivores, but you'll have a hard time believing it after these photos. PETA members: you have been warned.

This used to be a tank, until family friend Brian got a hold of it. Now it's a propane-powered lamb death trap. In the lower-right corner, you can see a homemade charcoal grill, made out of... um.. something metallic.


The poor, delicious lamb.

The lamb, all carved and ready to be devoured.

Lamb kebabs, now. Lots of lamb that day.

Sausages and chicken, cooked on a stainless steel sink-turned charcoal barbecue. We used this same one on Father's Day.

Happy Father's Day

My Father's Day weekend looks like this, with a couple of diner meals thrown in for good measure:

(That's actually an old stainless steel kitchen sink my boyfriend's great-uncle converted into a charcoal grill.)

Whatever your Father's Day plans, I hope you enjoy them!

(P.S. I've been having some technical difficulties with "scheduled posting" in Blogger this weekend. If you noticed a post about maple syrup has gone missing, sorry -- it wasn't supposed to be up until Monday!)