Pannenkoeken (Large Dutch Pancakes)
Pannenkoeken
The wide, thin Dutch pancake that fills a whole plate — supple, lace-edged, eaten sweet with stroop or savoury with bacon and cheese. A meal, not a stack.
IBread & the Broodmaaltijd- Prep
- 10 min
- Cook
- 30 min
- Serves
- 4
- Level
- Beginner
A Dutch pannenkoek is not a fluffy breakfast stack — it is a single wide, thin pancake that covers the whole plate, eaten flat and folded with a knife and fork. It is dinner as often as pudding, and the Netherlands is dotted with pannenkoekenhuizen, pancake houses whose menus run to dozens of sweet and savoury versions, from bacon-and-apple to cheese to bare pancakes drowned in dark syrup.
The dish is old and rural, at home in provinces like Gelderland where farm kitchens turned flour, milk, and eggs into a filling meal that stretched a little a long way. Pancakes appear in the earliest printed Dutch cookbooks of the eighteenth century, by which time they were already a fixture, and the tradition of eating them as a proper supper — not merely a treat — has never gone away.
Thin batter, hot pan
The whole technique lives in two things: a batter loose enough to swirl across the pan, and a pan hot enough to set it fast. Whisk to a smooth cream, rest it so the flour hydrates and the pancake turns tender, then tilt and swirl each ladleful so it runs thin to the edges. A well-heated, lightly greased pan gives the lace-edged, freckled surface that marks a good one.
One pancake, one plate: the Dutch pannenkoek is generous by design, a whole meal that happens to be round and golden.
Sweet, savoury, or both
Finish the plainest version with a slick of stroop and a snow of icing sugar. For savoury, press bacon or thin apple slices into the pan and pour the batter over them so they fry into the surface — the classic spekpannenkoek and appelpannenkoek. Children, and plenty of adults, insist on both at once.
“For savoury pannenkoeken, lay bacon or apple slices straight into the hot pan and pour the batter over them, so they cook into the surface.”
Ingredients
Serves 4
The batter
- 250 gplain flour
- 500 mlwhole milk — at room temperature
- 2eggs
- 1 pinchsalt
For frying and serving
- 50 gbutter — or a neutral oil, for the pan
- to servestroop — dark apple or beet syrup
- to serveicing sugar — for dusting
Method
- 1
Whisk a smooth batter
Put the flour and salt in a bowl and whisk in the eggs with a little of the milk to a thick, lump-free paste. Loosen it gradually with the rest of the milk until it is the consistency of thin cream — thinner than a stack pancake, so it spreads across the pan.
- 2
Let it rest
Leave the batter to stand 20–30 minutes. Resting relaxes the gluten and lets the flour fully hydrate, which gives a more tender, less rubbery pancake and lets it spread more evenly.
- 3
Heat the pan
Bring a wide (24–28 cm) frying pan to medium-high and wipe it with a little butter. The pan must be properly hot before the first ladle goes in, or the pancake will stick and steam rather than colour.
- 4
Swirl and fry
Pour in a ladle of batter and immediately tilt and swirl the pan so it runs into a thin, even round. Fry 1–2 minutes until the edges lift and the underside is golden-brown, then flip and give the second side under a minute.
- 5
Stack and serve
Slide each pancake onto a warm plate and keep them in a low oven while you work through the batter. Serve one to a plate, drizzled with stroop and dusted with icing sugar, or filled savoury and folded.
In the kitchen
The tools that make this recipe easier.
- EssentialLoaf tin ↗
For suikerbrood, ontbijtkoek, and dense rye loaves.
Building the bread meal
The Dutch lunch is a spread, not a dish — bread and a parade of toppings.
- Jonge & belegen kaas — young and aged Gouda, sliced thin
- Hagelslag — chocolate sprinkles for the sweet slice
- Boiled egg & ham — the savoury half of the board
- Karnemelk — a glass of cold buttermilk
Questions from the kitchen
How is a pannenkoek different from a crêpe or American pancake?+
It sits between the two — wider and thinner than an American pancake but more substantial and eggy than a French crêpe. One large pancake is a whole portion, eaten flat on a plate.
Why rest the batter?+
Resting hydrates the flour and relaxes the gluten, giving a more tender pancake that spreads evenly and is less likely to turn rubbery.
Sweet or savoury?+
Both are traditional. Sweet with stroop, sugar, or apple; savoury with bacon (spek), cheese, or ham. Many Dutch pancake houses list dozens of toppings.
Paint the rest of the meal
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