Aebelskivers

A long time ago, way, way before Willaims-Sonoma started having aebelskiver pans on the front page of their catalog, Mark's aunt Judy gave us an aebelskiver pan for our wedding. I had never been acquainted with aebelskivers; however, they were a very fond memory of Mark's childhood. I did (and still do) have a fondness for unique kitchen dishes/pans/gadgets, so I was excited to try out the recipe as soon as we moved into our apartment in Omaha. At first, I would make 1/3 of the recipe, which was enough for the 2 of us. I got pretty dang good at flipping the 'skivers over to make them into round balls. We had these for breakfast once a week.

Then Abram came along, and Aubrey, and Jacob. Aebelsivers for 5 required more batter and more time. And an aebelskiver pan only makes 7 at a time, so each person had to wait patiently for his or her turn. By the time Joel came along, I rarely made them because it just wasn't an efficient use of time. We had a Mickey Mouse waffle iron by this time that cranked out waffles faster than you could say "Steam Boat Willie." So waffles became our preferred fancy breakfast.

Mark's grandma came to the rescue a few years ago and gave me her old aebelskiver pan, so now I can make them 14 at a time. That was great for a while, but by the time I was making them for 9 people, that still seemed to create a breakfast bottleneck. It had been at least 1 year since I had made aebelskivers for breakfast--until this morning.

Jake asked so nicely, there was no way I could refuse. We had kind of a staggered breakfast, so it worked out fine. So yummy. I think I'll have get them back in our lineup.

The perfect accessory for an aebelskiver pan is this great batter dispenser. I bought mine years ago from Williams Sonoma, but now they only sell a lame, weeny version. You can still find these good ones around, though. I used to make a mess dripping batter all over the pan, and on the way to the pan, but this little gem makes aebelskivers, pancakes, crepes, and even cupcakes a very clean operation.


Here's the recipe, in case you have an aebelskiver pan sitting around:
3 cups sour milk or buttermilk
3 eggs
3 c. flour
6 Tbsp oil
1 1/2 tsp soda
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp sugar
1 tsp nutmeg

Officially, you are supposed to separate the eggs, and whip the whites separately. I generally skip that part, in favor of speeding breakfast along.

Mix milk, flour, oil soda, salt, sugar and nutmeg. Fold in egg whites, if you have done this seperately. Otherwise, just add the eggs in with the milk and flour to begin with.

Heat the aebelskiver pan and grease each indentation with butter (I just hold a stick of butter and touch each hole in the pan for about 1 second each with the butter). Fill each hole 2/3 full of batter. When the batter is bubbly on the top, flip each aebelskiver over and cook until done in the center.

Serve with syrup, or be fancy and fill them with jam.