Ebelskivers!

I had never heard of Ebelskivers until one day, before Christmas, we had walked into Williams Sonoma looking for something (I'm not sure what) when we saw the lady behind the counter making these round doughnut thingys.  The aroma was mouthwatering and just as I was about to ask what they were, my daughter exclaimed with delight, "Mom, ebelskivers!"  "Evil what?"  At first, my husband and I didn't even understand what she was saying.  She told us she had had them at a friend's house and they were amazing.  Of course we had to try them and she was right - absolutely delicious!  Basically, they are round pancakes with filling.  The ones at the store were filled with an apple cinnamon mixture and we were told you could fill them with almost anything.

Fast forward to Christmas morning when to my surprise, I received an Ebelskiver pan from my husband and daughter!  I didn't get a chance to break it in until New Year's day when we made a couple of batches, some with mashed strawberries, some with mashed bananas, and some with strawberry preserves.  The ones with the strawberry preserves taste almost like a jelly doughnut.  This weekend, we filled some with cream cheese (delicious) and my husband tried a couple with buffalo chicken dip (he loved them).  They are a lot of fun to make!  Williams Sonoma sells the pan, the pancake mix, and the turning skewers. You can also find the pan on Amazon (a little cheaper) and as for the turning skewers, we found that a pair of wooden chopsticks works fine.

HERE is a site that has a couple of recipes for the batter and some different fillings, but really you can even use pancake mix made with Bisquick.  As you can see, we topped ours with powdered sugar but you can also top them with maple syrup or in the case of the buffalo chicken ones, with ranch dressing!

We are having a lot of fun trying different fillings and this has become a great Sunday morning family activity. If you have ever heard of these or made them, please leave me a comment telling me your favorite filling. We are always looking for a new Ebelskiver adventure...