Cultural(ish) Night: DENMARK

Sorry for the week-long break between posts. It was kind of a rough week around here - in an emotional, stressful, hubby-sick, 4-yr-old-angst sort of way. Let's just say that after Sean coming home from work on Friday and going to bed at about 4pm and sleeping/resting for a full 24 hours, it's a good thing he was feeling better because I had "had it up to here!" with Ethan. Love the little guy, but there has been no middle setting with him lately - super sweet and nice or grumpy, whiny and headache-inducing. Ugh. But more about that in the next post. For this post I want to focus on Danish Aebleskivers!!


Never heard of or had an aebleskiver {pronounced "able-skeever"}, well you are missing out! It is basically a hollow pancake ball that you split open and fill with jams, applesauce and/or powdered sugar. The batter is made up of the same ingredients you see in pancakes, waffles, crepe - milk, eggs, flour, a little sugar, etc. But, just like it is a necessity to have a waffle-iron in order to make your own waffles, it is also a necessity to have a special aebleskiver pan to make aebleskivers.

Cast iron is best. I was lucky enough to inherit mine last summer. See, my danish heritage comes from my dad's side (Toftdahl). My grandma has (at least) two aebleskiver pans and my parents have one, so when my grandparents got another pan from the estate of some friends (the husband and wife passed away within just a few months of each other), they gave the pan to me. Don't be fooled by the "pancake puff" pans. They are not the same!

Anyway, it takes a little practice {I think I had two full batches of botched "practice" aebleskivers} and sometimes a phonecall home to talk to Dad to make sure the stove setting, oil amount, technique, etc. are all right but eventually you will get perfect, round, little balls of aebleskiver goodness! Here's a little look at the process:

After making the batter and getting your pan hot, you make sure to brush the whole pan with some oil, but especially the wells where the batter goes. Note: it does NOT take as much as the recipe says!! And your aebleksivers will turn out gross and greasy if you do. I learned this the hard way. And had to call and double-check with my Dad! You're not deep-frying the suckers - you just don't want the batter to stick to the pan. Lesson learned. Ignore recipe. Or make notes. You fill up your pan with batter and let it cook for a minute or so {I really don't remember!}


Then comes the fun/tricky part. Using a crochet-hook-thing {that I'm sure the people of Jo-Ann's would laugh about if they knew I had purchased it for cooking and not crocheting!} or knitting needles, you have to start moving the cooked part of the aebleskiver in quarter turns so the uncooked part of the batter goes into the pan and you start creating your sphere. This picture was after the first "flip".


And this is after they are all cooked and just about to come out of the pan.


And then, like I said, serve with jams, jellies, applesauce, powdered sugar, etc. We usually have breakfast for dinner with aebleskivers, so we also had scrambled eggs, sausage and some fruit. Not quite as authentic as our Brazil night, but still super tasty and the aebleskivers were definitely the star of the show!