Dad’s Danish Donuts

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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!