[citation needed] The batter for æbleskiver usually includes wheat flour, which is mixed with buttermilk, milk or cream, eggs, sugar, and salt.

Some recipes also include fat (usually butter), cardamom and lemon zest to improve taste, and a leavening agent, most often baking powder, but sometimes yeast, to aerate the batter.

Batter is poured into the oiled indentations and as the æbleskiver begin to cook, they are turned with a knitting needle, skewer or fork to give the cakes their characteristic spherical shape.

They were traditionally cooked with bits of apple (æble) or applesauce inside but these ingredients are very rarely included in modern Danish forms of the dish.

Æbleskiver are not sweet themselves but are traditionally served dipped in raspberry, strawberry, black currant or blackberry jam and sprinkled with powdered sugar.

[4][better source needed] According to another explanation, the custom of making a special sliced-apple dish originated in the Middle Ages when it was impossible to store raw apples beyond a certain date.

In the 17th century, as cast iron pans with hemispherical concavities became available, æbleskiver could be easily made throughout the year, and the variety of fruit and other fillings expanded.