My husband taught me to call it pannukakku.

This was back in California, fifteen-odd years ago, when he was still “the boy” and I was still learning which of his food preferences were actually Finnish and which were just him. (The man will put ketchup on things that should not have ketchup. That’s not cultural. That’s just chaos.)

Pannukakku, he explained, was the proper name for what Americans call a Dutch baby or German pancake — a baked egg-and-milk batter that puffs dramatically in the oven and collapses the moment you look away. I’d had the American version before, but he wanted me to use the Finnish word, and I liked the way it felt in my mouth. Pannukakku. It’s fun to say.

So I learned to make it the FInnish way, or what I thought was the FInnish way, which turned out to be the American internet’s way with a Finnish name attached. Eggs, milk, flour, sugar, butter, a hot oven, and that spectacular rise. We ate it for lazy weekend breakfasts. I photographed it for my old food blog. Life went on.

Then I actually moved to Finland and discovered that actual Finnish people have opinions about it. And their opinions, it turned out, were that mine is… not quite right.

Not wrong, exactly. Just accented. The vanilla is a tell. So is the sweetness. Traditional Finnish pannukakku is plainer, more savory-adjacent, served with jam to add sweetness rather than having it baked in. My version, with its tablespoon of vanilla extract and full cup of sugar, reads as distinctly American-influenced even when it’s sitting on a table in rural Finland made by someone who’s lived here for years. My mother-in-law’s pannukakku doesn’t have vanilla. Neither does anyone else’s, when I ask around. And yet.

I’ve served this to houseguests who asked for the recipe. I’ve fed it to kids visiting on playdates where it was promptly inhaled (drowned in maple syrup, because children have no sense of proportion and also no fear of sweetness). I’ve made it for potlucks and social gatherings where something homemade was expected, and it has never once failed me. It puffs. It collapses. It tastes like comfort.

The Finns who’ve tried it know it’s not traditional. They eat it anyway. Sometimes they ask me to write down how I make it. There’s something pleasing about that — a recipe that crossed the ocean twice, picked up an accent along the way, and still gets asked back to the table.

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Pannukakku (American-Finnish Edition)

This is the version I’ve settled on after years of tweaking. It rises beautifully, stays custardy inside, and reheats well the next day. The original came from Finnish Food Girl, a blog that’s since gone dark, but the recipe lives on in my kitchen.

Ingredients:

• 1½ cups milk (I sometimes add leftover ruokakerma to make it richer)
• 6 eggs
• 1 Tbsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup sugar
• 1½ cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ⅓ cup butter, melted

Method:

Preheat your oven to 230°C.

Whisk together the eggs, milk, sugar, and vanilla until creamy. Add the flour, salt, and baking powder; mix until smooth. Stir in the melted butter.

Line a baking pan with baking paper (this is the secret to easy cleanup, trust me). Pour in the batter.

Bake for 15 minutes, or until puffed and golden brown on top. It will rise dramatically. It will also deflate the moment you take it out. This is normal. This is correct. Do not be alarmed.

Slice and serve with maple syrup, jam, or fresh berries.

A note for Finnish kitchens: Vanilla extract comes in tiny, expensive bottles here. If you have vanilla sugar instead (and you probably do), substitute about 2 teaspoons of vanilla sugar for the extract and reduce the regular sugar slightly to compensate.