Plattas

Author: Barb Dyess

From the age I could sit upon a chair by myself, I remember my mom standing over her faithful black cast iron skillet at a stove, cooking platta or “thin pancakes". They were a staple of weekend breakfasts I simply took for granted, like orange juice. A somewhat wrinkled-looking stack of thin, sweet crepe-like concoctions on a plate, topped with butter and homemade peach preserves, was heaven-in-the-morning to me.

At least one of our weekend breakfasts—or whenever we could cajole mom into making them—usually included platta. As a child I assumed everyone ate them and recall feeling surprised when I found out it was specialty of our family.

Shortly after my mother’s birth in 1929, her seventeen year-old mother passed away. A few years later my grandfather remarried a lovely woman of German and Danish descent who promptly adopted my mom as her own. One of the “extras” was that my mother gained a very German grandmother also, from whom the thin pancake tradition came.

At one of my wedding showers, mom gave me a cast-iron skillet.

“Now you’ll be able to make thin pancakes,” she said with a big smile.

Though I barely cooked at all, I knew this would be one tradition I had to keep alive. It took a few tries to figure out how to make a decent platta; my first few attempts were no more than sticky piles of inedible batter. I decided I’d put my own stamp on platta, and experimented just a bit. Knowing the basic fact that flour thickens, I added one more tablespoon of flour. Ah-ha! I had the perfect platta batter, with the rest of mom’s recipe staying the same for over a hundred years.

We had different ways of eating platta in our family. My dad liked powdered or regular sugar and butter on his, as did my brother. My sister prefers her the same way I do, with fruit preserves and butter. Making them for my children now, they like maple syrup instead of preserves or jam – which in my opinion is much like the sacrilege of putting ketchup on fine steak, much to my kids’ amusement.

Plattas are tender, like young hearts they need a bit of loving, careful handling to come out right, and you must let them sizzle a bit around the edges to make sure they’re strong enough to hold together!

Mom is gone now, but her adopted German-Dutch heritage – and her platta – lives on in my children and me. Every now and then, they beg me for these sweet, tender pancakes on a weekend morning—and at other times when they succeed in cajoling a batch out of me.

Platta Recipe

Ingredients

3 eggs
6 generous Tbs white flour
1 ¼ C milk
1 Tsp vanilla extract
1 Tsp sugar
Dash of salt
Butter, jam, syrup for topping

Instructions

While mixing the batter, heat a twelve or eight inch skillet, with 1 tablespoon oil, on medium heat.
Use a blender to blend eggs until they appear thicker and have a lemon-color.
While the blender runs on slow, add flour, a tablespoon at a time, until the batter looks really thick.
Add milk, vanilla, sugar, and dash of salt and then blend, on high, until frothy.
Add 1 tsp. butter to skillet and melt to sizzling.
Add enough batter to cover the bottom of skillet to an 1/8” depth.
Cook pancakes until bubbles form in center and sides are nearly solid. Lift carefully and turn to other side; cook until light golden brown.
Serve hot with toppings as desired.

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