Things I Like #15

Ebelskivers (eh-bull-skeev-ers)

These are Nordic pancakes, traditionally served at Christmas, but delicious year-round. Apparently people in those icy northern countries don't eat them for breakfast like Americans do, but as a dessert. Weird. Obvi they are a breakfast food! Anyway, they're sometimes filled with jam or chocolate, and sometimes they are just dough balls that you dip in jam or chocolate or syrup or whatever pleases you, really. My uncle makes them every Christmas morning, and my cousins and I eat them like they're filled with crack instead of raspberry preserves. They're a pain to make because it's a bitch to flip them in their little griddles (although the below photo from Williams Sonoma shows an excellent technique with chopsticks that I will have to suggest to my uncle the next time I see him), and the first few batches usually burn or don't cook all the way, but damn, if they aren't totally worth it! Seriously, you can eat like 40 of these. One year we had a contest to see how many we could eat before feeling like we'd barf. One cousin made the unfortunate mistake of washing them down with sparkling cider, and the combination of several dozen jelly-filled ebelskivers with the sweetly carbonated beverage was disastrous. We got in trouble and were banished to the day-light basement until dinner.