Æbleskiver

Æbleskiver are a Danish sweet cooked in a special pan lined with hemispherical wells. Batter poured into the wells is turned little by little as it cooks into a round shape, and the æbleskiver are eaten with powdered sugar and jam. The outside, which touches the pan surface, browns lightly, while the inside, made from a batter containing eggs and milk, cooks up light. This texture comes not from submerging them in oil and deep-frying them, but from cooking each surface in turn against the pan. The name means “apple slices.” The plural is æbleskiver, and a single one is æbleskive; even today’s form, which contains no apple, keeps the name from an era when the fruit was the main feature.

Turning the Batter in a Special Pan to Cook It Round

The batter, which combines flour, eggs, milk, sugar and fat, is either leavened with baking soda or fermented with yeast. In the former, the reaction between the acid in buttermilk and the baking soda produces bubbles, and the foam of separately whipped egg whites also helps the batter rise lightly. Cardamom or lemon zest is sometimes added. A sample recipe from the dairy organization Arla uses 250 grams of flour, 400 milliliters of buttermilk, 3 eggs and 50 grams of melted butter, among other ingredients.

Fat is placed in the wells of the heated pan, and batter is poured in until each well is about three-quarters full. While the outside has set and the batter inside is still runny, a needle or skewer is used to tip each hemisphere onto its side. The batter inside then flows into the empty side, and the next surface cooks. In this process of turning them several times, the timing of each turn affects both the shape and how well they are cooked. Some methods add more batter partway through to fill the wells, while others add none for a lighter result.

When yeast is used, it is dissolved in milk, whipped egg whites are also folded in, and the batter is left to rise before cooking. A sample recipe in the South Jutland style wraps prunes in this batter. Unlike the old form, in which fruit was coated in batter, this method places the fruit at the center of the round sweet.

Æbleskiver being turned as they cook in a pan with wells. Photo: Electric Pear, 2021-03-26, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Original size, no additional processing.

From Apple Rings to Round Baked Sweets

Around 1700, the “Æble-skive” recorded in Matthias Moth’s Danish dictionary was a thin, round slice of apple dipped in flour and egg and cooked in a pan with butter. 18th-century cookbooks also contain several recipes (the proportions of ingredients and the method) for cored apple rings coated in batter. In some, the rings were soaked after cooking in a marinade combining wine, lemon juice and spices, and both the proportion of fruit and the way they were finished differ from today’s spherical form.

Recipes cooked in the special pan appear in the early 19th century. By the middle of the century, versions without apple spread, but fruit-filled ones did not disappear. Even in the latter half of the century, there were recipes that wrapped prunes, apple purée or rice porridge. While the written record of the word goes back to around 1700, it is uncertain when the pan with hemispherical wells was invented.

Danish Year-End Traditions and American Festivals

This sweet, which once also appeared at harvest time and at celebrations of life’s milestones, gradually became more closely associated with Christmas. In Johan Krohn’s picture-book poem “Peters Jul” (1866), a scene of baking them at home appears in the New Year’s Eve chapter. This poem also suggests that they were popular at the end of the year in the 19th century. The best-known way of enjoying them today is with powdered sugar and jam, alongside gløgg, a warm, spiced alcoholic drink. Homemade æbleskiver coexist with frozen ones that are reheated.

In Solvang, California, in the United States, they have been eaten for breakfast at “Danish Days,” a festival of residents of Danish descent. The festival began with the town’s 25th-anniversary celebration in 1936, and the 1961 festival program explicitly lists an æbleskiver breakfast. It is uncertain when they first reached North America, but in the places where Danish immigrants settled, they are enjoyed as a dish that conveys the connection with Denmark to visitors.

Nordic Pan-Cooked Sweets with Regional Names

Within Denmark, too, there are regional names such as Fedtnummer on the island of Møn, Bublipan on the island of Samsø, and Kukker and Pomler in South Jutland. In neighboring Norway, the same type of sweet is called munker, and the special pan used to cook them is called munkejern. Some, like the prune-filled version from South Jutland, enclose fruit inside, while others are cooked with no filling and served with jam. All of them use a pan with hemispherical wells, but there are regional differences in how fruit is used and how the batter is leavened.

Glossary