German Apple Pancake

Zeina and I both made pancakes for breakfast this morning... I'll admit, my recipe is a little more like a 'breakfast apple pie.'  This would be a great addition to a Sunday brunch, just a little sweet and packed with flavor from the warm spices.  Instead of a pie crust, we have an denser, eggy pancake- a perfect base for the belly-warming apple filling. 
My kitchen smells great with the lingering aromas of spicy nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice.  I revised a recipe for German apple pancake that I received from a co-worker last year.  To punch up the nutrition, I used whole-wheat pastry flour instead of all purpose flour.  I also seriously scaled back on the butter, but still left a little in for a bit of buttery flavor.  Sonny helped me this morning- peeled, cored and diced the apples.  Buddy also helped by taking care of the pesky apply peels... nothing is wasted in our kitchen!

So, now for the recipe...

German Apple Pancake

Pancake

1 Tb butter

3 large eggs

3/4 cup skim milk

3/4 cup whole-wheat pastry flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

Filling

2 Tb butter

3 apples, peeled, cored and diced

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground allspice

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F.  Prepare the pancake- melt 1 Tb butter in a pie dish or ovenproof skillet (I just put the butter in the pie dish and stuck it in the oven while I prepare the batter).  Whisk together the eggs, milk, flour, salt and cinnamon- pour over the melted butter in the pie dish.  Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, then reduce the oven heat to 350 degrees F and bake for 10 minutes more.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling.  Melt the 2Tb butter in a large skillet.  Add the apples and saute in the butter until tender, about 5-8 minutes.  Add the brown sugar and spices and stir to combine.  Turn heat down to low and simmer for 5-10 minutes or until pancake is done baking. 

Remove the pancake from the oven and slide out onto a large plate.  Pile the apple filling on top.  Dust with sifted powdered surgar and a dallop of vanilla yogurt (I use greek for extra protein).  Enjoy!