Virtue Rewarded with a German Apple Pancake

Thursday was devoted to installing a new refrigerator to replace the old one that kept frosting up. John did the hard part -- muscling the unwieldy things in and out of our pantry (a tight fit) and hooking up the ice maker and switching the door to open on the right. I was in charge of transferring all the food from the old one to the new one -- in the meantime making executive decisions about some of the mysterious half full jars that lurked in the remote corners and wondering how we'd ended up with so many different containers of pickle relish.

Then the book shelf that sits atop the refrigerator had to be dealt with -- the cookbooks were dusty and some were in need of repair. And some were in need of getting rid of. But not The Vegetarian Epicure! I got this book in 1972 and for quite a while it was one of my go-to cookbooks, even though we weren't vegetarians. The stains on the page below show that this was a popular recipe. 

So yesterday, after getting the cook books sorted (of course it didn't stop with just the one shelf,) I paid homage to the past by making the German Apple Pancake. It's relatively quick and easy -- saute some apple slices in butter with a little sugar. (I added a little rum and some frozen cranberries leftover from Thanksgiving because the apples weren't very tart.) 

Now mix up a pancake batter -- eggs, milk, flour, salt -- and pour into a preheated iron skillet in which butter is sizzling. Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 for  another ten minutes. The pancakes should be browned and puffy. Now pour in the apples, fold over the pancake, drizzle with a little browned butter, dust with powdered sugar, and devour. 

We almost never eat dessert unless there's company so this was a special treat. Now I'm going to have to delve into some of those other cookbooks -- I think  Cross Creek Cookery has a fine Black Bottom Pie I haven't made in years . . .