Austria, Austria, Yum, Yum, Yum!

Sunday #1 takes us to the country of Austria.  It all began the Saturday before as I set Sam the task of finding a pancake recipe for the next day while I was at a cousin's baby shower.  While searching he decided we should go in alphabetical order, which leads us to Austria.

Now you would think that two people who have been to Austria, not once, but twice, would have already tried Austrian pancakes while visiting the country.  It would have made sense if we had, but alas we didn't.  It was probably because we were too busy eating all of the yummy pastries in Austria.  We basically ate pastry the entire time we were there; and when we did eat a meal, it always included a couple of pastries with it.  Anyway, we got our first taste of Austrian pancakes right here in the U.S., and boy were they yummy!

Now on to the recipe and the pictures.  We'll start with the recipe.  Sam found it on allrecipes.com, and we have to thank Dardoubert for our tasty introduction to the Austrian pancake.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 1 cup milk
• 3 large eggs
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 2 tablespoons margarine

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and sugar. Pour in milk, eggs and cream, and whisk into a smooth batter. Meanwhile, melt margarine in a cast iron skillet.  We used an 8 inch diameter cast iron skillet.  It worked, but a slightly larger one probably would have been better.  If you use an 8 inch diameter, you need to let the pancake cook for an additional 5-8 minutes.
3. Pour the batter over the melted margarine.
4. Place the skillet in the oven, and bake for 35 minutes (40-43 minutes if using a smaller cast iron skillet). The pancake will rise to form a bubble in the middle. If you are using a smaller cast iron skillet, the pancake will not form a bubble in the middle, but instead will bubble more uniformly across the entire pancake.  Remove from the oven, and let cool until the pancake sets, or goes down.

Now on to the photos.  Sorry, we didn't take any photos of what the batter looks like before we poured it into the skillet, but unlike what we are used to here in America, the batter should be completely lump free and very liquidy.  There is plenty of liquid in this recipe, and it doesn't take long to get all of the lumps out with the whisk.  

 Here's the first picture after we poured the batter into the skillet with the melted butter already in it:

After we took it out of the oven, this is what it looked like:

After a few minutes, it deflated and looked like this:

Finally we cut into it, and this next picture shows the inside.  This is a very custardy type of pancake.

Now it's time to add some toppings.  The recipe called for pouring maple syrup over the top, but we opted for something slightly different.  First, since it's the beginning of strawberry season, we thought some fresh chopped strawberries would taste fantastic with this custard like pancake.  Then we thought we'd try to pour some reduced balsamic vinegar over the top of the strawberries and pancakes.  If you don't know how to reduce balsamic vinegar, here is a link to a video that shows you how:  Balsamic Vinegar Reduction Video .  Our final product:

This is what Sam's looked like after about 1 minute:  

Yummilicious!