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Food
How to Make a Pancake in the Oven
It’s quick, easy, and the cook gets to sit down and eat with everyone else
My family and friends adore my Swedish pancakes, but I’m not quite so enthusiastic about making them. Either everyone else eats while I make batch after batch, or I have to get up early, make them, and stash them in the oven on warm until we all sit down to eat. Neither option is very appealing. I still make them once in a while, especially for birthdays, but when somebody askes for pancakes, I often opt for this excellent substitute: Manka’s Babies.
The recipe is from James Beard’s cookbook The New James Beard. Beard got the recipe from a Czech-style restaurant in Seattle called Manka. The restaurant no longer exists, but thanks to Beard, their recipe for what he refers to as a “batter pudding, which is kin to a German pancake or an English Yorkshire pudding” endures.
Manka’s Babies is also similar to a Dutch baby pancake, although the quantities of the basic ingredients are different. The reason the recipe is called Manka’s “babies” is because it was originally cut into wedges and served rolled into little plump pieces or “babies.” It’s such a great recipe because it’s inexpensive, easy to make, and most people have the ingredients on hand.
