Kropsua or Pannukakku: Finnish Oven Pancake

On a cold November morning, what could be better than a hearty Sunday breakfast? I decided to try a recipe for "Finnish Kropsua" from the Lane's Cove Cookbook. I cannot find the translation for the Finnish word "kropsua", however, the recipe appears to be very similar to other recipes for "Pannukakku" or oven pancake. Kropsua or Pannukakku appears to be a close cousin to the German apple pancake -- a puffy pancake, baked in the oven, with a kind of eggy flavor.

This recipe calls for melting the butter in a deep dish pan, then pouring the batter into the melted butter and baking. As you may note from the first picture, my Kropsua finished with a large amount of melted butter pooled in the middle. That was kind of unappealing -- I spooned the butter out into a small dish.

The consistency of the baked Kropsua was very dense. We put some maple syrup on it, as one would with a "regular", flat pancake. It seemed much denser than the German Apple Pancake recipe that we have tried from "Cook's Illustrated". It made me wonder how the recipes are different from one another. And also how this recipe differs from other Pannukakku recipes.

Our Cook's Illustrated German apple pancake recipe has considerably less flour -- 1/2 cup, as compared to the 2 cups in this recipe. It also contains 2/3 cup half and half, to lighten the batter. I think perhaps that I should have used a larger pan when I made this recipe -- I used a tall sided Corning dish which was perhaps 8 inches in diameter.

The Pannukakku recipe in Beatrice Ojakangas' "The Finnish Cookbook" does not call for any butter, and considerably less flour too -- just 1/4 cup. I think that reducing the amount of flour in the future will made the dish less heavy and dense. I will need to try the recipe in "The Finnish Cookbook" to compare.

The Original Recipe: Finnish Kropsua
source: The Lane's Cove Cookbook, 1954 - Gloucester, MA

2 eggs
2 cups flour
1 cup milk
1/4 tsp. salt
1 Tb. sugar
3 Tb. butter

Beat eggs, add milk. Combine flour, sugar, and salt. Sift together and then then add egg and milk mixture to the dry ingredients. Beat with egg beater. Melt butter in deep dish pie plat, and pour above mixture over it. Butter will come up along sides and on top of batter. Bake in a 375 degree oven for 35 minutes. Serve plain or with maple syrup.