This is the fourth and last installment (for now, anyway) of my series of Dutch sweets made with batter, which so fas has covered pancakes, oliebollen and appelflappen. Poffertjes are tiny pancakes made with a yeasted batter in a special pan called a poffertjespan.  They are usually served with melted butter and powdered sugar. Poffertjes are something you eat mostly as a kid, as a treat from grandma. Poffertjes are prepared at home or bought from a specialized streeet vendor, a poffertjeskraam. Poffertjes should be slightly crispy on the outside and soft and airy on the inside.

A poffertjespan can be either heavy and cast iron, or aluminum and non-stick. I had picked up the latter (cheaper) variety, and also needed to purchase a portable gas stove as the aluminum poffertjespan doesn’t work on my induction stove. Just like oliebollen and appelflappen, poffertjes should be eaten fresh while they are still warm.  Poffertjes are often made with buckwheat flour for additional flavor.

Ingredients

For about 76 poffertjes, serves at least 4

125 grams (5/6 cup) buckwheat flour

125 grams (5/6 cup) all-purpose flour

25 grams (2 Tbsp) butter + a lot more for frying and serving

1 tsp sugar

pinch of salt

15 grams fresh yeast or 5 grams (1 1/2 tsp) instant yeast

1 egg

400 ml (1 2/3 cups) milk

powdered sugar, for serving

Preparation

Warm up the milk in the microwave to lukewarm. Add the crumbled fresh yeast and the sugar and stir to dissolve the yeast.

Sift the two flours into a bowl and add the salt.

Melt the butter.

Add the butter to the flour.

Add about half of the milk to the flour and stir to mix.

Keep stirring and slowly adding the milk and the egg.

Keep mixing until you have added all the milk and there are no more lumps.

Cover the bowl with kitchen towel or plastic wrap and allow to rise for 1 hour.

It is much easier to dispense the batter with a squeeze bottle, so transfer the batter to such a bottle using a funnel.

Heat up the poffertjespan over medium heat and melt some butter.

Brush the butter to distribute it over all the holes in the poffertjespan.

Quickly fill up each hole for about 3/4 using the squeeze bottle.

Allow to cook over medium heat.

Turn them around as soon as they are golden on the bottom and still moist on top. A skewer is a handy tool for this.

Continue to cook until they are golden on the other side as well.

Shake them onto a plate. Add some butter…

…and powdered sugar. Eat as soon as they have cooled off enough for you to handle them.