Red Velvet Cheesecake Ebelskivers

Have y'all ever heard of ebelskivers? I hadn't until Clayton, Peej, & I went on a day trip to Charleston and we went into one of my favorite stores ever, Williams-Sonoma. It is like my mecca. I mean I can spend hours in there just looking at all the gadgets and cooking utensils. So while we were shopping around I saw a small section for ebelskiver-making. There is this small pan that has hollowed out holes where you pour in the batter to make filled pancake balls. The possibilities are really endless for batters and fillings. I ended up buying the pan, the wooden skewers (for flipping), and some ebelskiver mix to make it a little easier on me. So I thought, why not do a southern twist on a Danish pancake classic? Well, what's more southern than Red Velvet Cake... I'm convinced that nothing is. It's just my favorite dessert in the world. So using the store bought mix, I added some ingredients to make it a like a traditional red velvet cake batter. The only thing that I couldn't decide on was what I would fill them with. I knew it had to be some sort of sweetened cream cheese mixture, but I wanted something a little more substantial, so that when you ate the cooked pancake balls, the filling just wouldn't run out every where and all over your new dress you just bought. Then I had my eureka moment, I would get cheesecake and form them into small pieces to place in the middle of the batter. I just bought 2 slices of cheesecake from the grocery store (and I cut off the graham cracker crust). Each piece of cheesecake made about 10 bites. The cheesecake held up extremely well, but was still nice and gooey without being too runny. And the red velvet cake batter isn't overly sweet, so you get a nice pocket of sweet cream cheese to balance all the flavors. I dusted mine with powdered sugar for garnish. These were awesome and a perfect way to celebrate a southern brunch :) enjoy!

Red Velvet Cheesecake Ebelskivers Just Waitin' to be Eaten

The First Glorious Bite of Red Velvet Cheesecake Ebelskivers

The Pillowy-Pocket-Goodness of Creamy-Fluffy-Cheesecake

For the Ebelskivers:

1 ¼C Ebelskiver Filled Pancake Mix (I used Williams-Sonoma’s mix)

1t Cocoa Powder

2 Eggs, Separated

1C Buttermilk

1T Melted Butter

1t White Distilled Vinegar

½t Vanilla

Drops of Red Dye (to the color of your liking)

2 Small Slices of Classic Cheesecake (I used store-bought cheesecake)

Pam (or melted butter), For Spraying the Pan

Confectioners’ Sugar, For Dusting

Directions:

1. Prepare the Ebelskiver Batter: Put the pancake mix & cocoa powder in a large mixing bowl. In another bowl, lightly whisk the egg yolks, buttermilk, melted butter, vinegar, vanilla, and red dye (as much as you want) together. Whisk the red mixture into the pancake & cocoa powder mixture until well combined.

2. Finishing the Batter: Using an electric mixer fitted with the whisks attached beat the egg whites on high speed until just stiff (not dry peaks) for roughly 1-2 minutes. Gently fold the stiff egg whites into the red ebelskiver batter in two intervals, folding in half of the stiff egg whites completely before adding the other half, so that they are equally incorporated throughout (do not over-fold or you will lose the airiness of the beat egg whites).

3. Prepare the Cheesecake: Remove the slices of cheesecake from the refrigerator, cut off all of the graham cracker crusts, so that only the cheesecake filling remains. Cut each slice of cheesecake into about 10 pieces, roughly the size of a teaspoon each. Lightly roll each cheesecake piece, so that they are more compact. Put the pieces in the refrigerator to chill until ready to serve.

4. Cooking the Ebelskivers: Heat the ebelskiver pan over medium heat and spray lightly with Pam (or brush with melted butter). Fill each well with 1T ebelskiver batter, then place one cheesecake piece (about 1t in size) directly in the middle, and then top it with another 1T of ebelskiver batter. Cook until the bottoms are lightly golden, about 3-4 minutes. Using two wooden skewers, turn the ebelskivers over and cook another 3-4 minutes until this side is also lightly golden brown. Transfer the cooked ebelskivers to a plate. 

5. Garnishing the Ebelskivers: Dust the Red Velvet Cheesecake Ebelskivers with the confectioners’ sugar and then enjoy!

Clayton Diggin' Into the Ebelskivers

He's very happy about the results... (he's going to kill me for putting this up)

*Please check out, Sweets for a Saturday for my link, as well as many others!!