Aebleskiver covered in powdered sugar and served with jam.

I first encountered Aebleskiver when I was in the Danish city Fredrikshavn with my mother many years ago. At that time, I guess that it was 20 years ago, we used to take the car on the 3 hour long ferry ride between Göteborg and Fredrikshavn and then packed the car full of groceries once every month during the colder months. We shopped meat, Danish sausages and liver pâté, thick delicious fruit yoghurt and other food. The food in Denmark at that time was really cheap compared with the Swedish one, it was long before all those cheap LL, Willy’s, Lidl and Netto stores and my mother saved a lot of money making the groceries for our family of 5 hungry persons. And as she often pointed out, the Danish food tasted and was much better and she was right. As she can’t stand the Swedish liver pâté she used to buy loads of the Danish one instead. I still remember the yummy sandwiches with creamy liver pâté that I loved to eat, together with a glass of thick yoghurt.

During one of those many trips over to Denmark when I accompanied my mother, we followed the lovely smell from a café where we went in and ordered Aebleskiver and tea. We didn’t really know what we ordered, we thought it was some kind of apple cake due to the name, as aebleskiver means apple slices in Danish. But we didn’t get any apple cake or any apples at all. Instead we got delicious and warm Danish doughnut holes, covered with powdered sugar and served with jam in which we dipped the aebleskiver. We were thrilled and in love with these fluffy fried little balls and after a conversation with the staff me and my mother went out shopping again, this time on hunt after a special thing: an aebleskiver baker. We searched around the city and finally we found the very last aebleskiver pan, at least that day or week. An aeble skiver pan is either in cast iron and used on the stove or electric. We got an electric one and this spring when my sweet mother was up in Stockholm to visit me she had the aebleskiver pan with her as a gift. She still had the original box and I was so glad that she gave it to me.

The machine used to bake the aebleskiver.

The Danish aebleskiver are most often eaten during the winter months, especially around Christmas. As the weather this summer was really crappy I made some aebleskiver during a rainy day to get in mood. My husband hadn’t eat aebleskiver before but was really excited and thought that they were delicious. He said that they were the best doughnut holes and doughnuts ever. Myself I thought of my childhood memories with every yummy bite.

This post is also an entry for That crazy kitchen gadget by Not Eating Out in New York. Maybe the pan isn’t that crazy, but it’s unusual and it’s the craziest thing I have in my kitchen except for the curry loving cat Yoshi ;-) The round-up can be read here.

Aebleskiver
(makes 40-50. Demands an aebleskiver pan. Adapted from Kerstin Kokk)

250 gram flour
125 gram butter, melted
375 ml lukewarm milk
3 eggs divided into yolks and eggwhites
1 tsp salt
0.5 tsp cardamom
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 tbsp vanilla infused caster sugar

Combine the milk with the egg yolks. Add flour, salt, cardamom and baking powder. Mix and then add the melted butter. Mix the batter until everything is well mixed.

In a separate bowl, whip the eggwhites until stiff and then gently fold them into the batter. Let the batter rest while you heat your aebleskiver pan. I don’t need any butter for my pan but if you have a cast iron one you probably need some butter. Pour about 1 tablespoon of batter in each hole and fry until browned and crisp on bottom. Turn them over with the help of a chopstick or fork. For me this went really quickly, as soon as I had filled all holes in my pan it was time to start turning the first one, but that all depends on your pan.

Serve the aebleskiver while still warm, with powdered sugar and jam.

Simple pineapple tart decorated with a rose from my balcony, made to go thereby the single use pan.

Sometimes you want to bake something fast and simple with ingredients you have at home instead of going shopping groceries. Well, then this popular recipe with unknown origin is perfect if you have canned pineapple. The original recipe calls for much more sugar, but the below amounts are enough. I’ve also added lemon zest and lemon juice to freshen it up a bit. The tart itself looks quite boring, so don’t hesitate to decorate it with (edible) flowers or fresh fruit. Serve with vanilla ice cream or vanilla custard.

Creamy Pineapple Tart

Crust:
150 gram butter
3 tbsp vanilla infused caster sugar
300 ml flour
1 tsp baking powder

Filling:
1 egg
200 ml Crème fraîche (15% or 34%)
50 ml vanilla infused caster sugar
2 cans (227 gram each) of canned crushed pineapple with juice
1 tsp lemon zest (lemon zest from 1 lemon)
2 tbsp lemon juice

Heat the oven to 170 °C.

Strain the crushed pineapple and set aside, don’t discard the juice: drink it!

Blend the ingredients for the crust in a food processor until the dough form clumps, it will take about 1 minute. Place the dough in a tart pan and using your fingertips, evenly press the dough onto the sides and bottom of the pan. Place the pan in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Prebake the crust for about 14 minutes.

Combine the ingredients for the filling and pour them into the crust. Bake the tart for another 20 minutes.

Raspberries on the balcony.
For many years I didn’t have any balcony and was dreaming about one all the time. On all my walks I always had my head turned up in the air looking at other people’s balconies. When we searched for an appartment here in Stockholm my most important demand was a balcony and I was thrilled when we finally bought one appartment with a small balcony but also two separate french double doors (were there is no space for any plants). The balcony is small, 2.8 square meters which is about 30 square feet. Most people would only buy one small plant for this kind of balcony, tops and that would be it. Well, I’ve already shown you my rhubarb plant which by the way is ready to be harvested again. Today I’ll show you my raspberry plant, my two wild strawberry plants and the flowers. The raspberry I bought was and is marked as Allgold, which is supposed to give yellow raspberries but today I finally had to realize that it was incorrectly tagged in the garden center and that it’s a normal red raspberry plant. Here you can read more about Allgold and as you can see it’s far from my pictures… I’m a bit dissapointed but the raspberries are still delicious!

The wild strawberry plants are quite small and therefor planted in two smaller pots and everytime I pass by I pick a sweet red berry. The wild strawberry plants are not demanding at all and just continue to bloom and give berries. I’m not sure how they will survive winter as it’s harder with small plants, but I’ll try to “dress” them warm when snow comes.

Besides of the rhubarb, raspberry and wild strawberries I also have a climbing rose called New Dawn which blooms continuously during the summer, a clematis called Multi Blue which blooms from spring to autumn, a bamboo plant for the cats and finally a Lilac called Palibin which is very suitable for pots. Well, all my plants are suitable for pots and grow very well so I really recommend them, just make sure to have pots and containers that are as large as possible. You can plant pretty much everything in pots, including fruits, veggies and berries. You can imagine how many more plants I would have if I had a larger balcony :-)

And last but not least we have two chairs and one table, so we can eat breakfast in the morning or have a nice dinner outside. All on 2.8 square meters. What do you have on your balcony?

The climbing rose New Dawn and the clematis Multi Blue.

The raspberry plant.

Bowser attacking the bamboo plant, which is safe for cats but not from them.

The lilac blooms and smells divine during spring.