Aebleskiver-Traditional Danish Recipe

My family is huge on traditions!  One thing that we love to celebrate, especially at the holidays, are traditions from Scandinavia because we have family that came from Denmark.  Making Aebleskiver is one of my favorite traditions from Scandinavia.  Aebleskiver is basically a pancake ball, only much yummier! 

This is the recipe that our whole family uses.  I love having recipe cards or books that have writing in them and you can see that they are well worn by the stains from foods as your loved ones have made the recipe using it!  This one is fantastic because you can see my Dad’s conversions to double and quadruple the recipe. Aebleskiver goes fast when we make it because we all love it, and there are a lot of us.  So we always quadruple it!!

 

You will need an aebleskiver pan to make this.  My parents were nice enough to gift each of their children with one of these pans as we moved out on our own!

 

Here is how I make Aebleskiver:

Ingredients

1/2 C butter, melted       2tsp Baking Powder

3 eggs, separated              1/2 tsp Salt

1 C Milk                                   1/2 tsp Cardamom

2 TBL Sugar                         Powdered Sugar

1 1/2 C Flour                        Butter for Pan

1.  In a large bowl, blend 1/2 cup melted butter, egg yolks, milk and sugar.  (blue bowl)

2.  In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and cardamom, if desired.  (green bowl)

3.  Stir into egg-yolk mixture.

4.  In a clean medium bowl, beat egg whites until stiff but not dry.

5.  Fold into flour mixture.

6.  Heat aebleskiver pan over medium-low heat until a drop of water sizzles when dropped into pan.

7.  Spoon 1/2 tsp butter into each cup; let melt.

8.  Spoon 1 rounded TBL batter into each cup. Cook about 1 minute on each side, using a knitting needle or long wooden skewer to turn balls.  (This is where I use a fork, as above!)

If heat is too high, centers will be doughy.   This picture shows 4 aebleskiver that have been turned and three that have not yet.  I filled these ones a little full it looks like!

8.  Dust each with powdered sugar. Serve hot. Makes 20 pancake balls.

FYI we don't use a knitting needle or skewer. We use two forks to turn the aebleskiver over. Also I never have cardamom on hand so I never add it.

Here is my Dad filling up some aebleskiver with jelly!  My Dad is usually the one to make aebleskiver.  He is also the one we gather around to hear wonderful stories about Denmark!

I have some aebleskiver on hand right now and now have a serious craving to go and finish them off!

 

I’d love to hear what fun traditions everyone else celebrates from other countries!

 

Rebecca…nom nom nom…