Ebelskiver. These small, round Danish pancakes can be filled with anything your heart desires – jam & chocolate chips being the usual favorites.
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Originally published – 8/3/16. Updated 4/1/24.
Ebelskiver – A Danish Pancake
Ebelskiver. They’re a small, round filled Danish pancake. Think a warm, filled munchkin in pancake form.
There are as many ebelskiver recipes as pancake or waffle recipes. I’m confident that they all work – it’s just about personal preference on taste and texture.
I prefer buttermilk in all pancake & waffle recipes. I also choose to separate the eggs and beat the egg whites – I feel the finished product is lighter and fluffier this way.
I know many folks just use boxed pancake mix – if boxed pancake mix is your thing then go for it.
For more unique pancake recipes check out my German Apple Pancakes & Ricotta Chocolate Chip Pancakes
Ebelskiver Pan
There is a special pan required to make ebelskiver. You can find them online for $15 – $30. Here’s the Ebelskiver Pan I use from Amazon.
Keep your eyes open though – I got lucky and found mine at a thrift store years ago for a few bucks!
My daughter insists that she can make these with her cake pop maker. We haven’t tried yet – but I think she’s right.
Ingredients & Instructions
This Ebelskiver recipe starts as a pretty standard pancake recipe.
As I mentioned prior – some people do use boxed pancake mix.
The difference is you’re going to pour batter to each well in the pan. Fill it half way with batter, add any fillings, and then top of with batter.
An Ebelskiver doesn’t need to be filled. But seriously though, one of the biggest joys of these little balls of pancake goodness is the filling. Sweet or savory – use anything you’d like. Household favorites are various jams and chocolate chips. Ricotta cheese with chocolate chips were my all time favorite. This time around we made one batch with fig cocoa spread, a strawberry honey jam and chocolate chips.
Flipping these little buggers is an art of it’s own. I do a three point maneuver. After the bottom of the ebelskiver is golden brown, I use chopsticks to turn it until the batter pours into the bottom of the mold. After set, about a minute or two, I turn the ebelskivers the remainder of the way and finish cooking. When done, I use a small plastic spoon to remove.
Everyone has their own crafty way of flipping ebelskivers. Honestly, you have to make a few batches to figure out what works for you. It’s tricky, but not difficult.
Serve these with a sprinkle of powdered sugar and get to eating. If you’re making them unfilled, then serve with syrups, jams, chocolate sauce…
Hope you enjoy!
Amanda ♥
Ebelskivers – Danish Pancakes
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoon sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs separated
- 1 cup buttermilk
- 2 teaspoon melted butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- vegetable oil or softened butter for greasing pan
- jam or chocolate chips for filling
- powdered sugar for dusting
Instructions
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder & salt.
- Separate eggs, set whites aside.
- Whisk in egg yolks, buttermilk, melted butter and vanilla extract. Whisk until smooth & thoroughly mixed – some lumps will remain.
- In a separate bowl, using electric mixers, beat egg whites until stiff peaks form.
- Fold whites into batter.
- Grease each well of the mold with oil or softened butter using a pastry brush or paper towel.
- Heat pan up over medium heat.
- Pour batter into each well, filling about half way. I use a small ladle.
- Fill with about half a teaspoon of jam or a pinch of chocolate chips.
- Top with additional batter – I fill 1/8″ from the top.
- Cook until bottoms are golden and sides are set, about 3-4 minutes, then, using your method of choice, flip pancakes and continue to cook until bottom is golden – another 2-3 minutes. I use 2 chopsticks to maneuver and flip each ebelskiver. I also do a “3-point turn” when I flip them. Whatever works for you.
- Repeat with remaining batter.
- Remove each pancake and serve with a dusting of powdered sugar or syrups. Enjoy.
I am literally drooling. These pancakes are something new to me. Looks so beautiful and delicious. Lovely share!
Thanks so much Kushi 🙂
Thank you, tastes just like home… Solvang, CA
Yay – that’s so wonderful to hear! Glad you enjoyed the recipe! Thanks for stopping by : )
My great grandmother made these for me every time I spent the night. Such a treat. I have her Aebleskiver cast iron pan. Such a treasure ! Thank you for writing a post about this wonderful Danish treat!
Hi Lisa!
So glad you enjoyed the post! I bet that cast iron pan is an absolute beauty! Do you use it for things other than ebelskivers?
Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Just wanted to point out, in the comments at the beginning you said, it was a Dutch pancake. Ebleskivers are danish, not dutch. I am danish and my aunt would always make these at their annual viking festival, so no Dutch, but yes Danish.
Oops! Thank you Jeanie – I will correct that now!
Annual Viking Festival!?! I want to go!
My mother would have these about once a month. And I tried to make them once and it was a disaster. But we are going to try it again. We have our mother’s recipe. We also would have Danish pancakes for breakfast and I will share the recipe with you and hope you will enjoy them as we do. We have people over every couple months and have the pancakes And play cards. Here is the recipe. 1/2 cup flour. 1 cup milk. 1&1/2 tablespoon sugar. 2 eggs. 1/4 teaspoon baking powder. 1 tablespoon vanilla.
I always use cast iron pans. It taste the same with regular pans, but they don’t cook them same and don’t look as good. Be sure to have your pan fairly hot when you cook the first one or it won’t turn out good. We use an electric stove and we cook the first ones on about 5 or 6 after that you may have to adjust the stove to keep the heat right. Because it cools down a little. We put a little olive oil for each pancake. I hope you will enjoy these as much as we do. Everyone tells me these are the best ones that they ever had. And we have a Swedish restraint near us and they claim to be the best.
I have a cast iron pan that was handed down to me by my mother (she would be 106 if still alive). I can’t cook on top of my stove because it is glass top. Any ideas about cooking these in the stove?
I use cast iron pans on my glass top stove all the time. I’ve been using, carefully, and no scratches after 15 years.
I made these using gluten free flour and Kefir for the buttermilk and they were delicious!
I spent quite a while looking at recipes for these for my newly acquired Lodge pan, and this one just looked “right”. Highly recommend, but this recipe and the Lodge pan. I used currant jelly, delicious!
good.
Made mine with King Arthur Gluten Free Flour, 1 cup Greek yogurt, and 1|4 cup milk instead of buttermilk (didn’t have any), and they were delicious. My filling was pecans, butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon.
I think you forgot to add baking soda to your ingredients list? I made them following the directions and they didn’t puff up. I have a different recipe a usually use, but couldn’t find it. Once I added a half a teaspoon of soda, they turned out great. Everyone else seems to have had success, so maybe I’m missing something? But I don’t see baking soda on the ingredients list.
Excellent recipe!
yum!!! i made them this morning. The batter only yielded 14 for me.
Made them last night using my Mom’s old pan handed down to me. My grandkids LOVE them…had to make a double batch because my grandson ate 12! They love peanut butter, Nutella, & we adults like jam & applesauce.
Your recipe was easy & perfect…thank you!