Stroopwafels!

I first had stroopwafels in Amsterdam– I wish I could say that I bought them from a street vendor and savored them, still warm, as I strolled the moonlit streets taking in the sights and sounds of the city… but in reality I bought a pre-packaged stroopwafel and ate it on the train as I went back to my hostel for the night. It was still really, really good, though.

Sadly, packaged stroopwafels in the US aren’t quite as good as the ones in Amsterdam, and are much more expensive. I hadn’t quite given up on the dream of having one fresh from the waffle iron, so I decided to enlist the help of my trusty pizzelle iron to try and make my own!

I saw a few different types of recipes– some with melted butter, some with only softened butter; some with yeast and some with baking powder; some with more eggs and some with fewer. And there were a bunch of different recipes for the “stroop” (syrup) filling, involving brown sugar, molasses, maple syrup, corn syrup, and “pancake syrup” in various proportions. Eventually I settled on a recipe and went full steam ahead!

Yeasted Waffles

So I’ve said before that I have a beloved family recipe for yeasted waffles– it’s my gold standard for waffles, and I’ve never found a restaurant waffle or alternate homemade recipe to outshine it. It’s the main reason that my search for the perfect plate of fried chicken and waffles has been unsuccessful– other people’s waffles never measure up to my own, and it ruins the dish for me. I guess I’ve just been spoiled by my dad’s waffles, which I never fail to ask for on visits home and only relatively recently learned to make for myself.

I’m sharing the recipe with you now so that you can all enjoy the feathery-light, crispy, slightly malty-tasting waffles that I grew up with. The batter is simple– no whipped egg whites or weird flours– and calls for a basic overnight rise on the countertop, so you just stir the starter together the night before and you’ll be ready to waffle in the morning. (I love using “waffle” as a verb, don’t you?) The batter cooks up impossibly light and airy, with a crisp exterior that will make you vow never to go back to the thick, heavy, Belgian-style waffles you see everywhere else. With a little salted butter and a drizzle of maple syrup, you need to eat these immediately or they’ll get cold and soggy and you’ll lose the magic.

So, are you ready?

Liege Waffles-Sadly, Not Worth It

I bookmarked the recipe for Liege waffles ages ago, but never got around to making them– probably because I have my own family recipe for yeast-raised waffles that I love, and I’ve never seen the necessity of straying from it. However, the idea of a caramelized, sugar-studded, butter-enriched waffle stayed with me, and when I came across the recipe in my bookmark file I realized that it was time for me to give it a try at last.

Whose recipe was it? Smitten Kitchen’s, of course– it seems that all of the “I need to try those someday” recipes I have come from there. There’s just something about the gorgeous photography and tempting prose that gets me every time. Anyway, her description of warm, chewy, sugary, brioche-based waffles won me over (despite the two-day rising requirement), and here’s the result.