And Finally..... The Æbleskiver pan has arrived

Those of you who have been following for a while will remember I ordered an Æbleskiver pan. Well, after a very long wait it arrived today. I got home from work with this very heavy cast iron pan. Washed it in warm soapy water. Coated it in vegetable oil. Baked it for an hour at 180C (and did a couple of baked potatoes for supper too). Re coated and baked it again to season it well. Having eaten our supper it was time for the first adventure.

I tried my local stores for buttermilk but it is an acquired taste so it was a fruitless search. I will get some at the weekend but I couldn't wait until then to try this out so I tried it with ordinary milk.

 beat the whites of two eggs in a clean stainless steel bowl (It might be my imagination but nothing lifts cream or eggs faster than stainless steel). Soon I had soft peaks and moved my attention to the yolks, a tablespoon of sugar, a cup of semi skimmed milk, a cup of plain flour and two teaspoons of baking powder. The power of Bamix means I can throw these into a jug and just blitz them. I poured this mixture into a fresh stainless steel bowl and added the egg whites. Folding them in gently I soon achieved a foamy batter.

The Æbleskiver pan had been on the heat for a while. Recipes talk of anything from two teaspoons to a tablespoon of oil/butter in each dish. I am trying to keep the weight off so I tried a teaspoon of butter in each first. I let this melt then added a tablespoon of the batter to each cell of the pan. As this bubbled to a set I added a half teaspoon of strawberry jam to each cell and topped them up to the rim. Using two metal skewers I started to free and turn each of the 'cakes' until they had been completely turned over to form golden balls. I removed these and placed them in a pre-heated oven at 200C to keep hot.

I repeated the exercise with a half teaspoon of almond oil in each cell. This time I added a half teaspoon of chocolate spread. The finished Æbleskiver were added to those in the oven.

There was enough for two more so I experimented with some St Agur cheese. These savoury version were cooked off in olive oil and once completed, served first. The sweet versions were dusted with a little sugar and brought in for dessert. 

The results were not photogenic but were very tasty. Now I have had a play and have the hang of the heat required in the pan I will go ahead and play with a few ideas. Once these are fit for public consumption then I will publish the results here. In the meantime I will enjoy the experiments to myself (though my wife may have to get a few :) )