Ebleskiver

A renewed family tradition

Æbleskivers aka little fluffy pancake rounds covered in powdered sugar and sometimes filled with a fruit filling.

They were a childhood delight whenever my mom found her cast iron pan made for these spheres of gluten goodness. Eventually the pan was buried in a box or lost but she stopped making them. Growing up, I had no idea the family tradition was a reminder of family complexities and was one reason they stopped appearing during the holidays.

Flash forward to today, probably 20 years after having them. My mom bought me my own cast iron dimpled with seven rounded spheres. Recipe on hand and with the tip of using wooden skewers to rotate them, I finally made Æbleskivers for my own family.

For anyone looking to make them, they’re a real mess and best eaten hot. I filled half with a jelly using a ziploc for pipetting inside during the pouring process. They cook within 1.5 minutes for each side.

Why do these little balls of pancake make me feel compelled to write? I feel, as I often find myself now as a mother, like certain tasks carry a weight behind them.

It’s the same feeling that popped up when I bathed with my sick baby when we had Covid or when we dug through soil and roots like my mother taught me as a child in the garden.

As I whipped the egg whites and rotated the dough, I ordered if the sticky sugar and sweat glued to my hands was what my mother, grandmother, great mothers all felt at one point during family breakfast. A task simple but weighted with the tradition of caretaking.

I think that’s what makes recipes beautiful; the rich history lies in the fact it’s been done before by the ordinary people we know. This isn’t a recipe I eagerly tried because a celebrity insisted on its merit. It’s magic lies in the family routine and tradition.

I don’t know why some traditions die and others carry on in memory or action. I suppose sometimes the memories are complicated based on the family members themselves.

I’m making it a goal for this year to collect my favorite family recipes. The Swedish ones, the holiday ones, the ones I’ve made myself. I am going to pair them with a memory or photograph for Eliza. I want her to always have them even if one day, God forbid, she stops talking to me or someone in our family. Maybe Æbleskivers would be just the thing to mend us.