By Porter Lang
The pan comes first. A poffertje is a small, round, puffy pancake, and what makes it that shape is not the batter. It is a flat metal plate pressed with rows of shallow dimples.
The pan
Fine Dining Lovers, a food magazine, calls the pan a poffertjespan: a metal hotplate with many small circular indentations. It says traditional pans were cast iron or copper, and that coated aluminium versions are also made. The Dutch Table, a food blog, says home cooks use a dimpled cast-iron pan, and that commercial vendors use large dimpled copper plates. A food-tour company’s page, which is promotional, mentions only a cast-iron pan with shallow indentations.
So the sources agree on the plate and differ on the metal. Cast iron holds heat. Copper moves it quickly. We found nothing in any of them that ranks one over the other, and we add no advice of our own.
The Dutch Table adds a practical point for a cook without the pan: the batter can be cooked on a lightly greased griddle, in tablespoon-sized portions. Our reading: you would get pancakes, not the dimpled shape, but the blog does not say so.
Turning them
Fine Dining Lovers says they are flipped with a sharp tool such as a knitting needle or a skewer. The Dutch Table uses the tines of a fork, once the sides dry and bubbles appear, and lightly butters each dimple before adding a small amount of batter. It describes controlling the portions with a squeeze bottle with part of the tip cut away.
None of this is a specification. It is how two writers describe it.
The batter
The Dutch Table says the original version used only buckwheat flour, water and yeast. Later recipes, it says, use wheat flour, milk and eggs, with yeast still the raiser. Its own modern recipe lets the batter rise for about 45 minutes to an hour. Fine Dining Lovers agrees that the traditional batter was buckwheat with yeast, which gave a partly risen shape, and says modern versions add wheat flour, milk and eggs to soften buckwheat’s slightly bitter taste and improve texture.
Serving
Both describe the classic: served hot, with butter and powdered sugar. Fine Dining Lovers lists other toppings, including chocolate spread, syrups, whipped cream and fruit, and says they are sold fresh by the dozen at bakeries and street stalls and that supermarkets sell dried batter mixes. It names Amsterdam’s Albert Cuyp and Noordermarkt markets. The Dutch Table says at Christmas and New Year markets they are often sold beside oliebollen. Wikipedia says they are a festive treat at both summer festivals and Christmas markets.
A dated record, and an undated story
The sources we read give no firm date. The Dutch Table, a food blog, says a recipe first appears in a cookbook from the mid-1700s, without naming the book.
Then comes the story. Fine Dining Lovers says the legend is that they started in a Dutch abbey, made for use as part of the communion host, and that churchgoers were “transported by the heavenly taste”, after which local entrepreneurs began selling them from stalls. The food-tour company says they were first made in monasteries and used as a communion-wafer-type item, and notes no source.
Three sources repeat the abbey tale. None cites a document, so treat it as a story.
Side by side: buckwheat and a shortage
Fine Dining Lovers says buckwheat was seen as an inferior substitute for wheat, which made poffertjes a poor person’s food, and that this was necessary during wheat shortages linked to the French Revolution. The Dutch Table also calls the original a poor man’s meal. But the 1746 cookbook mention is earlier than the French Revolution. The shortage may explain a later habit, or the magazine may be compressing two periods. The pages do not say, and we do not resolve it.
Names
Fine Dining Lovers and the Dutch Table both give broedertjes, “little brothers”, and the Dutch Table adds bollebuisjes. Wikipedia says they are also called “brothers”.
Dates in order
- Mid-1700s: a cookbook recipe, according to the Dutch Table.
- Around the French Revolution: wheat shortages, according to Fine Dining Lovers (no year given).
Questions a buyer would ask
Does it have to be a special pan? The sources describe a dimpled metal plate, and the Dutch Table says a griddle works in a pinch. Cast iron or copper? The sources name both and rank neither.
What we left out
We left out all prices, including a quoted price for a coated pan, the recipe quantities, the Indonesian kue cubit link on Wikipedia, and every topping that contained alcohol.
Quick answers
What are poffertjes? According to Wikipedia, traditional Dutch batter cakes. Fine Dining Lovers describes them as mini pancakes cooked in a poffertjespan with small circular indentations.
What are poffertjes made of? The Dutch Table says the original used buckwheat flour, water and yeast, and later recipes use wheat flour, milk and eggs.
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Roam first. Shop later.