Photo by De Gau Mona Christianson and Twyla Hansen turned aebleskiver cooking in pans at the signature baking contest held Friday as part of Tyler’s Aebleskiver Days. Teams of bakers were challenged to come up with creative and tasty takes on aebleskiver, a ball-shaped Danish pancake.

TYLER — The tradition at the heart of Tyler’s community festival is cooking and eating the Danish pancakes called aebleskiver. But the bakers gathered in Tyler Friday night weren’t making your ordinary aebleskiver.

As teams of people got set up around the 4-H building kitchens at the Lincoln County fairgrounds, they brought out all kinds of fillings and toppings — rhubarb, caramel, cream cheese, even gravy.

“Instead of biscuits and gravy, it’s ‘skiver and gravy,” Mona Christianson explained, as she and teammate Twyla Hansen prepared a tray of savory aebleskiver with sausage gravy. Christianson said the idea for the recipe “just came to me.”

The aebleskiver signature bake was a new event at Aebleskiver Days in Tyler this year. Teams competed to come up with the tastiest and most creative aebleskiver. In addition to a panel of judges, members of the public could also vote on their favorite entries.

There were a lot of different ideas and techniques on display during the competition. While some teams used electric aebleskiver pans, others used cast-iron pans on gas burners.

Bailey Pickering said she had learned how to make aebleskiver from her fiance’s grandmother on a traditional pan.

“She had these pans, and this is how they do it,” Pickering said.

Pickering and her three teammates were making two different kinds of aebleskiver: a sweet apple-filled entry, and a savory bacon and jalapeno one.

“We just did a whole bunch of trial and error,” and went with the recipes friends and family liked best, she said.

Filling, baking and garnishing the aebleskiver took plenty of coordination. As Linda Ballard spooned batter into a hot pan, Elena Blanchette was ready to add a little bit of caramel filling at just the right moment.

Blanchette and Ballard said they practiced ahead of time to help make sure their caramel pecan aebleskiver turned out right.

“We made two batches already,” Ballard said.

Several contestants said they joined the bake-off for the fun of it.

“We’re on the Aebleskiver Days committee, so it was a natural fit to want to support this,” said Beth Roelofs, who was making aebleskiver with teammate Linda Watson.

For some contestants, taking part in the aebleskiver contest was also about pride in their heritage. When asked why they decided to enter, Hansen and Christianson simply said, “We’re Danish.”