The artefact’s cast iron credentials date back to 1928 when 46-year-old Mary applied for design registration at the New Zealand Patent Office. Her husband Niels Nielsen, a fitter and turner at the Addington Railway Workshops, made the pattern and the seven-dish pans for making Æbleskiver were cast at the Booth Macdonald foundry.
Æbleskiver, which translates as apple slice, is a mid-winter comfort food made with pancake mix flicked with a knitting needle or skewer to create a hollow ball which is filled with berries or jam and dusted with sugar. It seems apple was superseded at some point. Usually served in threes, they are traditionally enjoyed as a daytime snack with coffee, or an evening treat with glögg.
Motivated by her need to heal her homesickness by funding a visit to Denmark, Mary was in the business of introducing this Nordic nourishment to New Zealanders when the Great Depression shifted the entrepreneurial landscape. Surrounded by six helpers, she operated the Danish stand at The Smith Family Fund All Nations Fair. With seven pans on the go, hungry out-of-work people were able to fill their sugar sacks with a week’s supply.
The “seven sisters” (you see what I did there?) then embarked upon a five-year selling programme throughout the nation. Although the Pleiades formed no part of Mary’s thinking, maybe one of the sisters, Electra, assisted. Electricity reticulation was well under way and spawning new showrooms keen to attract customers — so Mary and her helpers were invited to demonstrate their “batter ball pans” on the new-fangled cooking appliances. Kiwis adapted the product to their tastes — a bacon and egg concoction was popular.
By 1933, 27 years after arriving in New Zealand, Mary and Niels Nielsen had the means to holiday in Denmark. Ninety years on, does their latent legacy inspire multicultural Matariki kai creators?
Applying the Pleiades seven sisters parallel, the seven-(southern)-hemisphere pan offers a useful metaphor. But the legend of the Matariki whaea (mother) surrounded by her six daughters makes even more sense of the most common Æbleskivepande layout. And for those who identify with a nine-star Matariki cluster, a square 9-hemisphere pan is also manufactured.
Te Papa tells us the Matariki star signifies reflection, hope and connection to the environment as well as the health, wellbeing and gathering of people. So, it seems our ideal mid-winter comfort kai would be healthy and sustainable — and feasted upon at community-friendly, merriment-fuelled Matariki Balls.
Or it could be savoury or sweet inventions designed to warm the cockles of our mid-winter hearts, and maybe based on the classic Danish Æbleskiver recipe:
Makes about 20 / Prep: 30 minutes / Cook: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
50g butter, melted
250g flour
2 tsp baking soda
2½ tsp ground cardamom
2 Tbsp sugar
½ tsp salt
½ lemon, zest (optional)
2 eggs
4 dl / 1.7 cups buttermilk
Butter for frying
Method:
Melt butter and set aside.
Mix flour, baking soda, cardamom, sugar, salt and grated lemon zest (approx. 1 Tbsp) in a bowl.
Divide the eggs into yolks and whites. Add the yolks to the dry ingredients, along with the buttermilk and melted butter. Mix well until combined.
Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold into the dough. Fold in the egg whites carefully to ensure a fluffy dough.
Refrigerate the dough for 20 minutes.
As needed, transfer the dough to a jug or piping bag so you can easily add dough to the æbleskiver pan. You can also ladle the dough into the pan.
Heat the æbleskiver pan over medium heat and add a little butter in each dimple. Fill each dimple three-quarters of the way up with dough.
When a crust has formed, add a little more dough to each dimple as needed and turn upside down using a fork or meat skewers. Turn a few times while cooking to ensure a nice round shape. The total cooking time is about five minutes.
Keep warm under a tea towel or at 50C in the oven.
Serve warm æbleskiver with a dusting of icing sugar and your favourite jam.
Michael Smythe is an industrial designer who became a writer and historian.
