For the love of Ebelskivers

Several months ago I spied an Ebelskiver pan—a specially-designed pan for making Danish filled pancakes—in the Williams-Sonoma’s catalog. Then I had the good fortune to taste several variations made by my mother-in-law with cinnamon-apple, lingonberry jam, and cinnamon-sugar fillings. Lucky me, I got a pan of my own for Christmas this year. So far I’ve only had time to make them once—I used a raspberry filling designed for pastries. It was probably a bit sweeter and richer than I would have liked, but it sure didn’t stop me from inhaling them. On the day that I made them, we were leaving for a 10-hour drive back home after visiting my parents, so I took the leftovers with us. When we reached the 7th hour of the drive, I discovered that they make a great snack even when they're cool (although my husband can't vouch for this because I ate all of them...).

Mixing the batter and making the pancakes is a fairly involved process (especially for folks used to just mixing a pancake mix with water and an egg), and it took me a few rounds to master the art of flipping the pancakes over using two wooden skewers, but I think the results were well worth it. I’m anxious to try making them again, and I’ve been searching for some good variations to try.

The Williams-Sonoma website has several recipes. This one for the cinnamon bun ebelskivers makes my mouth water, and they look so good I can almost smell them through the computer monitor.


The lemon mascarpone ones also look like little pieces of joy and happiness.

And I’m tucking away this nifty recipe for pecan pumpkin filled ebelskivers—made with cream cheese and pecan pumpkin butter—for next fall.

When the weather is nicer than the snow we’re getting today, we do a lot of hiking. I was thinking that these would make a great snack to take along because they’re a great finger food once they’ve cooled. The pancake itself isn’t really sweet, so I think they would be great stuffed with cheese and/or lunchmeat, and I also saw a suggestion for sweetened cream cheese with dried fruits and nuts. A few of these along the way, and we should have enough energy to go an extra mile or two on our hikes!