Ebelskivers - A new take on pancakes

I love shopping in cooking stores as much as I love cooking itself. I got an email recently from Williams & Sonoma, advertising their new Ebelskiver pan, which they said would be a prefect gift for Mother's Day. I'm not sure about Mother's Day, but after researching it and imagining the endless possibilities I could do with these little puffs of heaven, I declared it Jenny's Day and bought one for myself on a whim. Of course, going into Williams & Sonoma and only buying ONE thing without looking at everything else is a difficult task. I came out with not only an Ebelskiver pan, but a canister of blue sugar dust and a dinosaur-shaped sandwich cutter for my son. Please don't judge me.

Ebelskivers are Scandinavian pancakes. They are sort of like little filled donuts only the texture is much less dense. 

I tried out the pan this morning. The store carries an Ebelskiver mix that you just add the wet stuff to, but I opted to make my own mix from the recipe on the back of the pan's packaging. I don't know what would happen if you used a normal pancake mix, but traditional Ebelskiver batter is much thinner and lighter with the addition of egg whites. 

I decided to try my first batch with some homemade cinnamon apples as filling (a sliced granny smith apple, little butter, sugar, and cinnamon fried up in a sauce pan until soft). 

The process is easy, but flipping can be a bit tricky. I don't think you can mess these up though. The store carries these fancy flipping sticks, but I just used two chopsticks leftover from the last chinese take out we got. Basically, you pour a tablespoon of batter into each greased hole, spoon in a teaspoon of filling, and top with a teaspoon of additional batter. Flip them over when the edges start to look firm. 

 

I topped these little guys with some powdered sugar, but syrup or whipped cream would probably good too.  They were light, moist and delicious. My son gobbled them up too and asked for more. I'm not sure what the serving size is, but my husband ate 6 and I ate 5. We could have easily eaten more, but I ran out of filling. 

Next time, I might try making some with cheesecake filling and top them off with with cherries. Mmm. 

They can been made sweet or savory and served at any time of day with a multitude of fillings an toppings. The pan was $39.95. You can buy the Ebelskiver mix for $9.95 and the fancy flipping sticks for $16.95, but I recommend just using chopsticks.