Once a year DH puts on his pinny, rolls up his sleeves and gets down to some serious work in the kitchen. Today was that day. And why? Æbleskiver (Danish Christmas donuts). His father always used to make them for us, even when he was well into his late 80s. And now DH is carrying on the tradition and using his father’s recipe.
Today was a little more dramatic than usual. DH discovered after he made up the batter that our donut pan (and the one he borrowed this morning from my bff) didn’t work on our new induction hob… So he had to make a quick trip down to the local shops…
I’m about to give you the family recipe. Though unless you have one of these dinky pans
the donuts will not technically be æbleskiver. But I’m thinking you could use the batter for waffles or pancakes. For 30 donuts you will need:
- 3 eggs
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- a quarter litre of kærnemælk (buttermilk)
- 2dl milk or cream (I’d go with cream, DH used milk – boo!)
- 250g plain flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½-1 teaspoon ground cardamom
Mix the first five ingredients in a large bowl until it’s fairly frothy. Easiest with an electric mixer. Gradually mix in the flour, baking powder and ground cardamom. Make sure it’s well mixed, then leave to rest for about 15 minutes.
Heat up your donut pan, put a tiny bit of oil or butter in each of the holes and fill each hole about two-thirds of the way up (they will swell up). When there are lots of bubbles on the surface of each donut, flip over. In DH’s family the tradition is to use knitting needles… We used size 3 😉 But a skewer will do.
When the little donut balls are browned on both sides remove from the pan.
Serve warm with icing sugar (or granulated sugar) and jam. To eat them the Danish way:
- each person takes a plate
- put a spoonful of (icing) sugar and jam on to your plate
- put two or three donuts on to your plate
- dip the donuts into the sugar and jam on your plate
- repeat as necessary
I’m not quite sure where in that recipe it states that DH can then abandon the sorry mess of a kitchen but, as he made a batch of over 90 donuts today, I’m saying nothing 😉
Happy Saturday and bon appétit!
They look yummy! I wonder how hard it is to find the pans here in the States, and what else you can make in them?
Hi L!
The pan DH bought today was made by "Le Creuset", so you just might be able to find one…though they don't come cheap.
In France they make a similar kind of donut called "pet de nonne" which means [ahem] Nun Fart… 🙂
The Danes don't use the pans for making anything else. So the pan comes out just one a year!
Very, very rarely the Danes will add a tiny piece of apple to the donut. The name æbleskive actually translates as "slice of apple".
Bon app! 🙂
Yet ANOTHER reason to move to Denmark! I'll trade you some of those donuts for some of DH's ice cream 😀
Sounds like a good swap to me…as long as it's choc icecream? ;D
Thanks so much for the recipe!
I found your site looking for instructions to make the Christmas decorations we made as children. My Mum is Danish, married to an Aussie and living in Australia… I am now going to quiz her on why she kept Danish Christmas Donuts a secret!!!
Mange tak & Glædelig jul
Ninna
Hi Ninna and thank you so much for stopping by! Seems you certainly got a Danish Christian name… 🙂 Just out of interest, what were the decorations you were looking for?
Og Glædelig Jul til dig også! 😀
Thank you for this recipe! My heritage is Danish, and my Dad used to make these when I was little… I inherited the pan, but sadly he died without passing the recipe on to us (I was very young)… I'm so excited to try this!tivitsea 560
I love these donuts!
I also put banana aside… and did some tests with strawberry.
D e l i c i o u s! 🙂
yummy.. love it!