Aebleskiver

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

If you’re tired of your pancakes coming in the usual size and shape (flat, round), consider making these glorious little cakes next time. These are aebleskiver (AY-bel-skee-ver), and unless you spend a lot of time in Solvang, California, (or Denmark) or are lucky enough to have a friend with Danish family and thus an aebleskiver pan (mange tak, Karin), you might never have had the pleasure of eating them.

Aebleskiver are lovely little spherical cakes, made by cooking a pancake-like batter in a peculiar cast-iron pan that looks like a cross between a small Lodge skillet and an escargot plate. According to legend, the Vikings originally came up with the method by cooking griddle cakes in their battle-dented shields, heating the concave metal over a hearth and then pouring in some pancake batter. (A pleasant domestic break from all that rowing and burning.) If you don’t have a shield handy, you can order aebleskiver pans from Fantes.com, find them at or by mail-order from Solvang Restaurant in Solvang (a bucolic little town up the coast from Los Angeles with a large Danish population) and from aebleskiver.com, where you can also get a recipe and download a video showing you how to make the things. It’s a rather tricky procedure, and involves rotating the cooking batter so that it forms a kind of popover. Hint: My friend uses a knitting needle.

Served with a dusting of powdered sugar or drizzled with syrup or raspberry jam -- you can also fill the cakes with slices of apple, which is how they got their name -- they’re truly fantastic. Spherical IS a lot more fun than flat. Too bad restaurant supply companies don’t stock dented Viking shields....

-- Amy Scattergood

Photos by Amy Scattergood