I almost bought these little Danish pancakes one other time at Trader Joe’s – they are in a bag in the frozen breakfast food section. I decided against them that time, but they caught my eye again and I thought, “What the heck, let’s give ‘em a go!”. Their proper Danish name is aebleskiver, isn't that fun to try to say?? We ate them as a leisurely Sunday breakfast while reading the Washington Post.
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| This is the bag - it contains quite a lot of pancake balls |
Here is what we thought:
David – Taste - very good. Texture - lovely. Convenience of eating them - not so great. You have to tear ‘em apart and hold ‘em in your hand, unless you are gonna eat one whole ball at a time, which is more of a mouthful than I care for. I used my hands to eat them, not a fork.
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| David dipping his Danish Pancake! |
Susan – They are a little bit bland. They are sort of an excuse to carry whatever topping you want to put on the ball to your mouth, as opposed to actually being flavorful themselves. I put out several toppings to choose from: TJ’s Fig Butter, apple butter from Union Nebraska that a Nebraska friend gave us, powdered sugar, and TJ’s Boysenberry Preserves review here. To us the best one was apple butter – these balls worked good as a system to cart apple butter by the mouthful from the bowl to our mouths.
The texture, to me, was a little weird. The taste is good but sort of boring. If the tasty toppings weren’t in the picture I do not think we would want to shovel these naked pancake balls in our mouths.
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| They sure look cute all laid out on the table with toppings and espresso |
We heard a really good story on NPR about the Danish concept of hygge. It was a great piece and I recommend a listen, but I cannot FIND it online. Let me just that that listening to it made us both long for more “hygge” in our lives. I can’t seem to find the original piece we listened to but I do not want to leave you high and dry, so here is some hygge information for you:
Here is a short “Driveway Moment” piece that references hygee at 2:00 - Driveway Moment
And here is an article on the subject: BBC news hygge article
Oh I WISH i could find a link to the piece we listened to on NPR because it was so perfect. Anyway, the concept is the “hygge” is a word not meant to be translatable, but to be felt/experienced.
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| Our hygge... |
I bring all of this up because the term hygge is Danish, as are these pancake balls. And in fact EATING these pancake balls while sitting in front of a roaring fire wearing your handknit sweater and heavy socks while playing Dominoes with friends could likely BE hygge!
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| Not expensive. But not my favorite breakfast food in the world. I will probably wait until I go to Denmark to eat them next :) |
Back to the review: to me these pancake balls taste like something they would serve at the Ikea restaurant, only they would be yuckier cuz the topping they served would be lingonberry…
Price – $3.49
Rating -3
