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Dutch CookbookBlauw & Wit
HollandThe Eighteenth Century

Poffertjes (Little Puffed Pancakes)

Poffertjes

The tiny yeasted pancakes of the Dutch fairground — puffed in a dimpled iron, turned with a fork, and buried under butter and a snowfall of icing sugar.

Poffertjes (Little Puffed Pancakes)VIIISweets & Baking
Prep
25 min
Cook
20 min
Serves
4
Level
Intermediate

At any Dutch fair, kermis, or Christmas market there is one stall you find with your nose before your eyes: the poffertjeskraam, where a cook in an apron works a vast blackened iron pierced with dozens of little wells, turning each puff with a two-pronged fork faster than the eye can follow. The smell is butter and warm yeast, and the pancakes come by the plate, always too hot, always dusted white.

Small by design

Poffertjes are not merely little pancakes; they are a different thing altogether. Where an ordinary Dutch pannenkoek is a wide, thin, plate-sized affair, poffertjes are yeasted and thick for their size, so each one puffs into a soft, almost bready sphere. That leavening is the whole trick — the batter must be given time to foam before it ever meets the iron, and the half-turn in the dimple is what traps the air and gives them their round, cloud-like middles.

A fairground inheritance

The dimpled iron goes back centuries, and by the eighteenth century the little cakes were fixtures of markets and feast days, sold from stalls that were often family businesses handed down for generations. Buckwheat, cheap and hardy, was the original flour of the poor Dutch sand country, which is why so many old recipes still call for boekweitmeel alongside the wheat.

A good plate of poffertjes is gone before the icing sugar has finished settling — that is the measure of them.

The pleasure is in the contrast: the faint chew of a yeasted crumb, the cold butter sliding into the warm crevices, and the powdery sweetness on top. Make them in company, straight from the pan to the plate, and hand them round before anyone has time to sit down.

From the kitchen
“Keep the heat medium and steady. Too hot and they scorch before the centre sets; the perfect poffertje is pale gold outside and cloud-soft within.”

Ingredients

Serves 4

The batter

  • 125 gplain flour
  • 125 gbuckwheat flour — traditional; or use all plain
  • 7 ginstant yeast — one sachet
  • 300 mllukewarm milk
  • 1egg — beaten
  • 1 pinchsalt
  • 1 tspsugar

To serve

  • 60 gbutter — cold, plus more for the pan
  • to finishicing sugar — generous

Method

  1. 1

    Wake the batter

    Whisk the two flours, yeast, salt and sugar together. Beat in the lukewarm milk a little at a time to keep it lump-free, then the egg, until you have a smooth, pourable batter the texture of thin cream. Cover and leave somewhere warm for about an hour, until it is foamy and risen.

  2. 2

    Heat the iron

    A poffertjes pan has shallow round dimples; a cast-iron one holds heat best. Set it over medium heat and let it come fully up to temperature. Brush each dimple with butter using a heatproof brush or a wad of kitchen paper — the first batch tells you if the heat is right.

  3. 3

    Fill the dimples

    Pour or pipe the batter into each hollow until just full. They will bubble and dome almost at once. Work quickly and in order so the first-filled cook the longest.

  4. 4

    The half-turn

    When the tops look set but still glossy and the edges are golden, slide a fork or thin skewer under the rim and flip each one over. The wet top collapses into the dimple and puffs into a little sphere. Cook another minute until golden on both sides.

  5. 5

    Butter and dust

    Pile them onto a warm plate, drop a knob of cold butter over the top so it slumps between them, and sift over far more icing sugar than feels reasonable. Eat immediately, while the butter is still melting.

In the kitchen

The tools that make this recipe easier.

For the sweet table

Coffee-time (koffie met wat lekkers) is its own small ceremony.

  • Koffie — strong filter coffee, one biscuit alongside
  • Slagroom — whipped cream for poffertjes and tompouce
  • Roomboter — good butter on the warm koek
How a Dutch meal is built →

Questions from the kitchen

Can I make poffertjes without the special pan?+

Not really — the dimpled iron is what gives them their shape and their characteristic puff. A takoyaki or æbleskiver pan is the closest stand-in if you don't own a poffertjes plate.

Why buckwheat flour?+

The old recipes were built on buckwheat (boekweit), which grew on the poor sandy soils and gives the pancakes a faint nutty depth. All plain flour works and is lighter, but you lose that traditional edge.

What goes on top besides icing sugar?+

Butter and icing sugar is the classic. From there, stroop (syrup), a spoon of advocaat, or fresh strawberries in summer are all at home on a plate of poffertjes.

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