Æbleskiver and kanom krok
Have you ever heard of an Æbleskiver or Kanom Krok? If not, don’t worry, I hadn’t either. Until I was perusing the Williams-Sonoma catalog a few weeks ago and saw a cool pan for pancakes that looked more like big donut holes. Intrigued, I researched online and found that Æbleskiver is a traditional dish in Denmark and all through Scandinavia. Both the pan and the pancakes are called aebleskiver. It is a sweet pancake batter made from flour, eggs, milk, and butter that is poured into the depressions of the special cast-iron pan. They are partially cooked, then filled and rolled, and rotated with a special metal tool that looks like a chopstick or knitting needle, until the batter is cooked uniformly into balls that are brown and crisp.
the starter kit includes the pan, turner, pot holder sleeve, and a package of organic batter mix
Æbleskiver means “apple slices” in Danish. So traditionally they are filled with peeled apple slices, then sprinkled with powdered sugar and dipped in strawberry jam. YUM!
While researching, I found that an identical pan is used in Thailand to make Kanom Krok. This is a savory breakfast food made from a batter of rice flour and coconut milk and topped with shrimp, chilies, peanuts, corn, and green onion. It is sold in markets as an on-the-run breakfast consisting of two kanom krok that are folded in a banana leaf and then wrapped in a piece of newspaper.
I ordered my Æbleskiver Starter Kit last week from Aunt Else’s Organic Æbleskiver and it arrived today! My plan is to begin experimenting with ideas for a variety of different sweet and savory fillings and share them with you… I will keep you posted on the tasty progress! If this sounds like something you’d like to make, order your starter kit so you’ll be ready to go as the recipes roll out.
3 comments
Hello Linda,
As someone, who is intimately familiar with both æbleskiver and kanom krok, let me shed a little light and make a few small corrections to your references to two of my favorite dishes! First of all, I am of Danish (and Swedish) extraction, speak Danish, have lived in Denmark, where I have many relatives, and I fix æbleskiver on a family heirloom æbleskiver iron which is over 100 years old! In addition to that, I lived in Thailand for five years. Both of my children were born there, and kanom krok were (and still are) a family favorite.
First of all, the pans are really quite different. A true kanom krok pan typically has 28 indentations that are quite a bit smaller than the indentations on an æbleskiver iron, in fact you really could not fix æbleskiver on a kanom krok pan as the indentations are way too small, and you would never be able to keep up with turning 28 æbleskiver at once! The kanom krok pan is also really meant to go over a large flame range (gas or charcoal) that would not be present in most noncommercial western kitchens. A Japanese takoyaki pan would be a closer match to the æbleskiver iron(“æbleskiver panne” in Danish).
I do use my æbleskiver iron to fix kanom krok however, as it is more practical on burners of a typical home stove. You just fill the indentation fairly shallow to get the correct size – or you make obscenely large kanom krok which a Thai might balk at, but I certainly am not above doing.The toppings you list are ones that you certainly might find at a kanom krok stand, but the most common toppings are scallions, boiled corn, and boiled taro. They are also often served plain, as more of a sweet treat.
Now for æbleskiver… You are correct in you translation to apple slices, and partially accurate in stating the traditional way is to fill them with apple slices. Historically they were filled with apple slices as a way to cook the inside before the outside burned on the unpredictable circumstances of cooking on an open flame. This is a bit of culinary history, however that most Danes are not aware of. In my family, we do use apple slices, but that tradition has been dead in Denmark for well over a century, and most modern Danes would scratch their heads with much curiosity at the suggestion that you fill your æbleskiver with their namesake. The idea that you pollute their sacred æbleskiver with any other sort of filling would certainly be met with scoffs, although in the name of interesting modern fusion cuisine I say go for it! While I and most Scandinavian Americans are happy to Americanize the dish and serve it for breakfast, in Scandinavia they, as well as anything in the pancake/waffle family is served strictly as a desert, with the exception of “mad pannekager/mat pannekakker” or meal pancakes, a savory variation on what most Americans think of as “Swedish pancakes.”
I hope this was enlightening, if a bit long-winded 🙂
-Tom Larsen
Correction – they are served as a dessert. whoops! Oh and they can be served with any type of jam. Black current is very common!
Tom, thank you so much for your enlightening and knowledgeable information on this subject! Makes me hungry for æbleskiver, and I’m wishing that it was you who would make them for me. 🙂 I have to share that the delicious treats are really catching on… so much so that I spotted a package of frozen æbleskiver at Trader Joe’s, just yesterday. Thanks again!
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