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Papua New GuineaFlavors · Denmark
Soft little dough balls fried in a cast-iron pan with round cavities and served with powdered sugar and jam. Despite the name, which means apple slices, they generally do not contain apple: they are the Danish Advent and Christmas sweet.
Traditional sweet from Denmark
Also known as: aebleskiver, æbleskive
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Æbleskiver — Denmark
Æbleskiver are balls about the size of a golf ball, golden on the outside and fluffy inside. The batter is made with flour, milk or buttermilk, eggs and a little sugar, sometimes cardamom. They are cooked in an æbleskive pan, a cast-iron skillet with hemispherical cavities, and turned with a knitting needle or skewer to form the round shape.
The name means apple slices, and the history explains why. The original æbleskive was a slice of apple dipped in thin batter and fried, and 18th-century cookbooks already include several recipes of that kind. With the spread of the specialized pan in the early 19th century, the balls baked in the pan became common, and the apple fell out of use.
The word appears in an 1866 Christmas poetry book, Peters Jul, with an illustration of the balls being turned in the pan.
Æbleskiver are the Advent treat: they appear at family gatherings, office and school parties, and Christmas markets, often served with gløgg, the spiced hot wine. They are also sold ready-made to heat at home.
They are served hot, dusted with powdered sugar, with a bowl of jam on the side for dipping.
Denmark
Advent and Christmas sweet throughout the country.
Wheat flour, milk or buttermilk, eggs, sugar, leavening, sometimes cardamom; butter or oil to grease the pan; powdered sugar and jam for serving.
Hot, eaten with the fingers or a fork, dipped in powdered sugar and jam; often accompanied by gløgg.
Advent and Christmas, especially in November and December, at home, at parties and at Christmas markets.
Your questions
Æbleskiver means apple slices. The original recipe was a slice of apple fried in batter; with the specialized pan the apple stopped being mandatory and the name remained.
While still hot, rolled in sugar and jam, almost always with a mug of gløgg.
In the weeks leading up to Christmas, at family gatherings and at Christmas fairs.
Flavors of Denmark
Nordic spirit flavored with caraway and, sometimes, dill, served chilled in small glasses at Danish celebratory lunches, alongside herring and beer. In Denmark, the drink’s industrial history is linked to Aalborg.
Flattened meat patties made from ground meat, typically half pork and half veal, fried in butter until a crust forms. They are homestyle food across Denmark, served with potatoes, a dark gravy and pickles or cabbage.
Hot sausages served in a bun from the pølsevogne, the hot‑dog carts that have operated in Danish cities since 1921, with mustard, ketchup, remoulade, fried onion and pickled cucumber slices. The first carts appeared in Copenhagen.
Cold rice pudding with whipped cream, chopped almonds and vanilla, served with warm cherry sauce at the end of the Christmas dinner. A whole almond is hidden in the serving dish, and whoever finds it receives a gift.
Thickened compote of red fruits such as strawberry, raspberry, currant and cherry, served cold with cream or milk. It’s the classic Danish summer dessert, and the name is famously hard to pronounce.
A slice of rye bread with butter and a generous, carefully arranged topping, eaten with fork and knife. It’s Denmark’s traditional lunch, and the tall, decorated version became famous in Copenhagen restaurants in the late 19th century.
Slices of pork belly fried until crispy, served with boiled potatoes and a white parsley sauce. It was chosen as Denmark’s national dish in a vote held by the Ministry of Food in 2014.
Honey and spice cakes made from a dough that rests for months before baking, often coated in chocolate. They have been produced in Christiansfeld, the Moravian Church town, since 1783, with recipes kept secret.
Sweet yeast pastries with layers of butter, shaped as a snail, bow, braid or envelope, filled with custard, remonce or fruit. The first Viennese bakery in Denmark opened in Copenhagen in the 1840s, and the city became associated with the pastry the world calls Danish pastry.
Rye bread with smoked herring, raw egg yolk, radish, chives and onion: the smokehouses’ dish from Bornholm. The name means sun over Gudhjem, and the yolk plays the role of the sun over the village where the island’s first smokehouse opened.
Soft yeast cake topped with a layer of melted butter and brown sugar that forms syrupy pools on the surface. It is regarded as the cake of Fyn, and the earliest records are from Odense, in 1830.
