Central Europe · Volume 22, Herring, Beer and a Coastline Three Nations Share
Poffertjes
The Netherlands
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 1 hour 30
- Researched
- 9 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
The commonly told origin, French monks near Woerden experimenting with buckwheat after a wheat shortage, could not be confirmed against any primary or academic source and should be told, if at all, as folklore rather than fact. What is well documented is the fairground trade itself: poffertjes stalls were part of Dutch markets by the end of the eighteenth century, and at the 1875 Amsterdam kermis a single stall reportedly sold an average of sixteen thousand eight hundred individual poffertjes a day.
As tradition built it
Makes about 40, serves 4. About 1.5 hours including proving.
Ingredients
- 100 g plain wheat flour
- 100 g buckwheat flour
- 7 g dried yeast
- 300 ml warm milk
- 1 egg
- a pinch a pinch of salt
- for the pan butter, for the pan
- to serve icing sugar and a knob of butter, to serve
Method
- Whisk the yeast into the warm milk, leave 10 minutes until foamy.
- Whisk in the flours, egg and salt to a smooth, thin batter.
- Cover and prove about 1 hour, until bubbling.
- Heat a poffertjespan (or a very hot flat griddle if none is available) and butter the dimples well.
- Pour or pipe small amounts of batter into each dimple, and cook 1 to 2 minutes a side, turning with a skewer or two forks, until golden and puffed.
- Serve immediately, in a heap, with a large knob of butter melting through and a heavy dusting of icing sugar.
What a modern chef changes
The buckwheat's own flavour foregrounded, and the batter's rest given genuine respect
Rung 1, applied by analogy to a yeasted batter rather than a lactic ferment
Method
- Push the buckwheat ratio higher, toward two-thirds buckwheat to one-third wheat, for a more pronounced nutty flavour than the more common half-and-half split, since the buckwheat is genuinely the ingredient responsible for what makes a poffertje distinct from an ordinary small pancake.
- Do not rush the prove. A full, unhurried hour, in a warm spot rather than a hot one, builds the light, faintly sour depth a yeasted batter should have; a poffertje made from an under-proved batter is simply a flat, gummy blini.
- Brown a portion of the butter before serving, rather than melting it plain, for a nuttier, more complex finish that plays directly against the buckwheat rather than simply enriching the dish.