Aebleskiver

Have you ever had aebleskivers? I was delighted to find they weren’t so rare when I moved out here.

For those who are unfamiliar with them, they are Norse pancake balls, traditionally with pieces of apple in the center. I first learned of their goodness when I was a lad of 17. I would drive a couple of my girlfriends home from school. One was of Danish and the other was of Swedish heritage. Their mothers just loved me and often they would make us aebleskivers for an after school snack.

The tool used to make them is called a monka pan which looks like a skillet that is mixed with a muffin pan, but with rounded bottoms. You fill each rounded cup with batter, insert a piece of fruit or jam in the center. Once one side is cooked you slide a fork around the edge and flip the ball over and it cooks the batter that was on the top and forms it into the ball shape. They are plated when they are finished and sprinkled with powdered sugar with a little jam on the side for dipping. It’s a wonderful warm snack.

After high school and college I settled down and wanted to make my own aebleskivers, but finding a monka pan in New Jersey before the Internet was not an easy task. I did find one through a relative who worked in the culinary tools industry. It took me years, but I finally got one.

The funny thing was that I was in Canada a few years after that, and I went into a hardware store in Buckingham, Quebec. There on the floor was a stack of probably 50 cast iron monka pans on the floor that they were selling for $1.00 each. I picked up a couple.

It is even funnier that it is now a major project for me to make aebleskivers. A few years ago we got all new appliances and our stove is a ceramic top. You can only cook thing with flat surfaces on it, which means no woks and no monka pans. So when I ever want to have aebleskivers I need to haul out my camping cook stove. But you know, it’s really worth it.