Day 4 - Christmas morning aebleskiver
December 25th, 2007
My husband is of Danish hertiage on both sides of his family, and he grew up eating aebleskiver at his grandparents’ house. The first time I went to his Granny & Grandpa’s house when we were dating, Troy requested that Granny make some for us, and that was the first time I’d heard of or eaten them. When we got married, Granny gave us one of her cast-iron aebleskiver pans as a wedding gift, along with her recipe typed on an index card.
Aebleskiver are basically pancakes shaped like little balls, which makes them tasty AND fun to eat. The batter isn’t hard to make, though it does take some trial and error to figure out how much to pour in each cup. Turning them is a bit trickier. I personally use a nut pick, but in recipes you’ll often see knitting needles mentioned, or forks work too. I prefer mine dipped in plain ol’ sugar, but they are delicious with jam, honey, maple syrup, peanut butter, or Nutella. Annalie likes dipping hers in strawberry yogurt.
It’s become a tradition of ours to make aebleskiver at least one time while we have houseguests, dating back to our very first visitors at our little duplex in San Diego, just two months after we were married. We also tend to make them on holidays and occasionally on lazy Saturdays.
Being a Navy family, it’s tricky to find traditions that can easily move with us from place to place. It’s nice that this tradition not only is easy to take with us, it’s a tradition with roots in Troy’s childhood, too.
It’s just occurred to me that it would have been nice to use this for tomorrow’s 7 days photo, since the Day 5 theme is food. Oh well.
December 25th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
Yay for Granny Gronberg and her abelskivers! I love mine wth sugar too (and a little butter doesn’t hurt). If I come up to visit you guys once we are in NC, don’t let me forget to have you make some for me :)
Dana
December 26th, 2007 at 12:18 am
This looks great! I’ve seen these pans before but had no idea what they were for…I’m tempted to buy one now and make these. Yum!
December 26th, 2007 at 7:26 am
I wonder when Annalie will be making her first batch? I guess she’s still a little young at the moment!
Oh, she probably would have been helping me yesterday if she hadn’t been preoccupied with her new toys. She loves to help cook, and is already pretty good at measuring out things like baking soda and flour and sugar. I think I was about six or seven when I was making French toast and grilled cheese sandwiches essentially on my own, and my brother was scrambling eggs at about the same age. So the day when Annalie makes her own aebleskivers is probably not that far off. Ack! :-)
December 26th, 2007 at 9:33 am
We just ate aebleskiver on Christmas morning! I usually turn them with a wooden kabob stick, then I just use a new one each time. :) We also try to eat it with Danish sausage, I don’t know how to spell it, but it is something like medistapilse. My Grandpa used to make it when he was alive, but now we are lucky that my Grandma can find it at a store near where she lives. Does the Danish side of his family still do any other Danish traditions at Christmas time? We always hide an almond in rice pudding for our desert on Christmas Eve and whoever gets the almond gets a present and the most fun is that we dance around the tree-well, we really hold hands around the Christmas tree and sing Christmas songs, including one in Danish. Sorry to ramble on… but Aebleskiver are so much fun and so yummy!
December 26th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I wish we had a food tradition like this, that’s so fun!
My husband and I had aebleskiver for the first time this past May when we visited Solvang, CA. The kitchen store near my house just had a class where they taught us how to make aebleskiver (they used the very traditional CHOPSTICK to turn them!) and I almost bought a pan, but I couldn’t see myself making them all that often.
The pan and recipe as the wedding gift was such a thoughtful and wonderful idea!
December 26th, 2007 at 10:27 pm
Wow! I’ve NEVER heard of these round pancakes! How do you pronounce it? “able skiver that rhymes with quiver?” The cast iron skillet with forms in it looks really intriguing! I adore cast iron. I hope you’ll bring your skillet home some time on a move across the country and we’ll have brunch at my house! What else did you serve?
I’m sure Annalie will appreciate this Christmas tradition far more than my kids appreciate our oyster stew! Although my brothers and I don’t really mind that not that many others enjoy it so we get to eat MORE! There’s always potato soup for the less adventurous eaters! My honey was skeptical for many years before finally trying and acquiring a taste for the old oyster stew!
Do you ever make the Lithuanian cracker dressing? That’s another of our favorites!
For our immediate family, we devour “puppies” (little smokies), some form of french toast (often made from cinnamon chip bread from Great Harvest!), cheesy eggs, and homemade cinnamon rolls (albeit not home-made by ME!) on Christmas morn! and I try to throw a fruit at them after gift opening before the main feast is ready!
So fun to see your holi-days!
love to you all!
December 26th, 2007 at 11:57 pm
I’ve never heard of ‘em! Thanks for sharing - can’t wait to try them! Merry Christmas!
December 27th, 2007 at 1:01 am
Oh that is so cool - I’ve never heard of those and was wondering why you were cooking lemons.
Must try that sometime.
You are too sweet. Now I see Jeff and I need to come for a visit so we can get pancake balls.
December 27th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I’ve just discovered your blog, and I can’t tell you how thrilled I was to happen upon your recipe for aebleskiver — thank you for sharing! My Danish husband & half-Danish kids are sure to love it :-)
December 31st, 2007 at 1:36 pm
We JUST saw a commercial selling the pans while we were in TN visiting my sis. I can’t remember what Americanized name they gave it, but we both thought it looked yummy. Reminds me of beignets from New Orleans. We drove by the Lodge Cast Iron factory on our way back…now I wish I’d pushed harder for us to stop there. :( Probably could’ve picked up a pan. Guess we’ll just have to come for a visit! I’d like to sprinkle a few frozen chocolate chips in the batter before turning. Hmmm…
March 12th, 2008 at 1:14 am
[...] think it’s funny that Day 4 of the last 7 Days run happened to be Christmas Day, and this time Day 4 was my birthday. Category: party!, family, 7 [...]
August 9th, 2008 at 12:20 am
[...] getting late and I need to go to bed so I can get up early and make aebleskiver and bacon for breakfast, but I know if I don’t throw a quick post up now I will have new [...]