Dreams of crisp Danish delights

Adventures with Æbleskiver 

I am often at my most creative in the wee small hours. I often wake at around 3 or 4am (perhaps I am a natural born baker?) and at this time my mind is often filled with ideas, This morning was one of those. I woke thinking about Æbleskiver. After tasting them at Noma, filled with herbs, I was inspired enough to research them a little. They are a traditional Danish dessert made in an Æbleskiver pan like the one below.

 The pan is heated over a medium heat to a point where butter sizzles on the pan. The dimples are greased with butter before a buttermilk batter is spooned in to fill to about half way. At this point apple is traditionally added before more batter is added to fill each well. The batter is now left to cook until the edges of each Æbleskiver begin to brown and pull away from the edges. At this point they are traditionally turned using a knitting needle to create an evenly browned, spherical dessert.

My thoughts around these little delights focus on varying the sweetness of the batter and using other ingredients to fill them. The possibilities are endless but before I can play I need a pan. A quick web search showed that they could be purchased from the usual large on-line retailer, Amazon. I found a good looking pan at under £30 but it was delivered from the US. I can't wait that long to start to play so a return to Google soon showed this more local supplier http://www.danishfooddirect.co.uk where I found the pan shown above. One is now on order and I will let you know how I get on when it arrives.