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broodings from the burrow

March 6, 2019


happy pancake day
posted by soe 1:14 am

Today was Mardi Gras, the final celebration before the Lenten season of self-deprivation and self-improvement begins. Historically, because people wanted to use up their stores of things they were going to give up starting on Ash Wednesday, it is traditionally a day of consuming baked goods, particularly deep-fried ones, like doughnuts.

In the United Kingdom, it’s pancakes that get celebrated, and Rudi and I decided we like that tradition. I’m only meh about traditional pancakes (except during blueberry season, when I’m all in), but really like crepes, so that’s traditionally our Mardi Gras meal of choice. We opted for spinach and cheese this year.

Pancake Day Crepes

I mentioned over the weekend that my folks had given me an aebleskiver pan for Christmas, which I had yet to christen, and this seemed like a good time to do so.

Aebleskiver are poofy Danish pancakes that are cooked in a cast iron skillet with indentations for frying up Munchkin-like pancakes, often filled with fruit or jam (or served alongside it).

Aebleskivers

The dough, which calls for separated eggs, took me a while to make, in part because we’d already used a bunch of dishes to make the crepes. But I got it made (whipping egg whites with my mixer is so much faster than by hand!)

The recipe I was using said to put a tablespoon of dough into each indentation, add jam, and then top with a second tablespoon. “Scant” is probably a word I’ll add to that, because the first batch, which went to Rudi were even more overflowing than mine:

Aebleskivers

The instructions also said you should use two skewers to pull up the pancakes and flip them over in their little nests. I didn’t have skewers, so I used fondue forks, which were fine. Chopsticks also probably would have worked. Primarily, I forgot the first rule of pancake flipping, which is to wait for those little bubbles at the edge to indicate it’s time to avoid a big mess. And then I didn’t recognize that it was going to be a little messy regardless, and just to sort of poke any extra bits into the indentation to let them cook into the poofs. And maybe to turn them again 90 degrees to account for any dough not quite done because of that.

Aebleskivers

Rudi doesn’t love raspberry seeds, so his were filled with strawberry rhubarb jam. Mine had raspberry rose jam, which made mine smell heavenly. I’m excited to experiment with some other fillings in future batches. I have some thick chocolate raspberry sauce in the fridge that could work. The other recipe that came with the pan suggests you can put pieces of apple in instead of jam, so that should be fun, too.

Aebleskivers

Top with powdered sugar and enjoy while warm. I think when we cook up the rest of them (because we don’t actually participate in Lenten abstentions), I’ll make some sipping hot chocolate to enjoy with them. I think that will be perfect.

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