Oven Pancakes for Thursday--Uunipannukakku

Thursdays in Finland mean only one thing, pea soup for lunch, followed by a big piece of delicious oven pancake.  Today, my family slept late because of vacation, and at noon we had the traditional pancake.  It would have been a relaxing day, except that I woke at 5am to work on our remodeling project--every good Finnish family has to build a sauna.  Ours is finished except for the bathroom around it.  Today I worked on finishing the walls while my husband repaired a sewage drain.  As much as I hate finishing drywall, I think I got the better job!

Anyway, we didn't get the pea soup made, but the pancakes are simple and delicious.  I used the recipe from Beatrice Ojakangas' book, but tripled it in order to have enough to feed starving teenagers!

First, I beat nine eggs with my mixer until they were frothy, and preheated the oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.

 I then whisked in six tablespoons of sugar, 3 cups of milk, 3/4 cup of flour and 3/4 teaspoon of salt.  Cooking spray kept the pancake from sticking to the jelly roll pan that I used, but you could also smear it with butter.  The pancake was very thin when I put it in the hot oven, but puffed up as it cooked for about 15 minutes.  It had a custard-like texture.

If you don't have so many big eaters to feed, you can follow Beatrice's original recipe:  3 eggs, 1 cup milk, 1/4 cup flour, 2 tablespoons sugar, and 1/4 teaspoon salt.  She recommends baking this quantity in two 8 inch cake pans, and says that it should serve 4.  

These pancakes are perfect with strawberry jam, but today we only had blueberry jam in the cabinet.  I thawed some frozen blueberries and peaches to round out the brunch.  I hope you try this recipe soon and enjoy it as much as we do.