Family traditions - Aebleskivers

(Be it declared that images in this post are culled from the web and are not my own. I didn't think to take photos while I was cooking, and I wasn't willing to make another batch to illustrate my blog. Sorry.)
My mom has Danish ancestry, and at holidays growing up there were quite a few remnants of that Danish heritage around. For example, Mom's family would celebrate Christmas together on the evening of the 23rd of December, because in Denmark this is a celebration called Little Christmas eve (Lille Juleaften.) We would all gather at Grandma Beth's house, or Aunt Alma's, and have dinner and Christmas treats and sing carols. One of the desserts was a traditional Danish treat called kleiner. My aunt Alma and her family always brought the kleiner, while my Grandma and her family always brought the shortbread cookies, a more Scottish tradition than Danish. (For info on how to make kleiner, see my cousin's post here http://onemcpeck.blogspot.com/2009/12/danish-kleiner.html).
Another food from the Danish background was aebleskivers. We had these round pancakes for breakfast at regular intervals and for special occasions. In Denmark, aebleskivers are not a breakfast food, but that was when we always had them at my house. The word itself, aebleskivers literally means apple slices. I do not recall ever having them made with apples in the batter, however. We would have them with powdered sugar sprinkled over then, and sometimes jam om top or inside. I did inherit an aebleskiver pan from my Grandma Beth, and I had seen my mom make them for breakfast, but until a few years ago, my little family only had aebleskivers when my mom came down and made them for us.
A few years ago a friend from the 9th ward told me how she had a family tradition of aebleskivers as well. Their tradition was to make them for LDS General Conference. I thought this was such a great idea. I worry a lot about not passing traditions down to my kids because I'm too relaxed (read too lazy.) There are many things my mom did for her kids that I can't even do, like making each new baby a hand-made quilt, and a hand-crochet-edged flannel blanket. Russ's mom knitted each of my babies a baby blanket, and each of the girls has a crocheted dress she made for them. I'm not going to be doing those things any time soon. But, making aebleskivers? Well, that I can do.
So we started a tradition of having aebleskivers every Sunday morning General Conference. The kids love it. It's a special breakfast they look forward to for weeks ahead. And it makes General Conference seem that much more special.
The only special equipment you need is an aebleskiver pan. The recipe is just our best waffle recipe (with beaten egg whites and real butter and buttermilk if we have it.) When the batter is mixed, you heat the pan to the desired setting. (5 -1/2 works best on my stove.) Into each cup of the hot pan dribble a drop of grease (my mom used vegetable oil. I have used both lard and olive oil - both work fine.) followed by about 1/4 cup of batter. When the aebleskiver seems about half cooked (sorry, you just have to learn to judge this on your own) you turn it over, being careful the uncooked batter stays in the cup and the cooked half tops the cup. (Some people turn a quarter at a time, 3 turns in all. That makes them more round. I just turn them once.) You can use knitting needles to do this. I use a long cooking fork. You can see the process well-illustrated in the photo below.That is at least one tradition I can pass on to my kids and help them retain just a little bit of the pride and joy of their Danish ancestry. And they taste so delicious, too.

For more aebleskiver info, see the following:
http://www.solvangrestaurant.com/aebleskiver.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86bleskiver