the quest for real belgian waffles

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June 20th, 2009 by rjr

Some friends of ours are twittering their way through Belgium, making us jealous with their food posts — especially the Belgian waffles (aka Gauffres, or Gauffrettes). It has been several years since I’ve been there, and we just barely found find a quality reproduction. Don’t be fooled by belgian waffles in your average cookbook.. the real thing is a dense and sweet yeast-raised delicacy peddled by street vendors, and more suitable for a dessert splurge than a breakfast. There’s a place in downtown salt lake called Bruges Waffles and Frites, and we finally got around to trying it out the other day after taking the kids to the childrens museum..

Dallin and Amanda make a Belgian decision

The waffles were SOOOO good.. just like I remembered in Belgium. The first thing Emily said after taking a bite was “Mommy, do we have the recipe for this?”

plain vanilla waffle from Bruges Waffles & Frites in SLC

We also had to experience their Belgian fries (aka Frites). They are fried in canola and sunflower oil, and you get your choice of at least half a dozen different mayos. I let the kids decided, and they came out of the shop with ‘curry mayo’, which was surprisingly good.

frites

So naturally, this morning when I woke up bright and early with the twins, I thought I’d do a little waffle experiment. The logistical problem with my experiment is that I had two 6 months old babies sitting on the counter, helping me cook in their bumbo chairs… so I had to act fast. Besides, the other kids would be waking up soon, and I didn’t have time to let waffles rise. So I searched for a short cut version that would still accomplish the right effect. Another disclaimer is that traditionally belgian street waffles have a TON of butter in them, and I didn’t want to feed the family a pound of butter for breakfast, so Dallin did some quick math for me and converted the 3/4 lb of sweet butter into a cup and a half of oil.

Quick Nearly-real Belgian Waffles

4 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1 1/2 c. canola oil (or 3/4 lb. sweet butter, softened)
4 eggs
2 tbsp. milk (or more until you get the right consistency)
Some vanilla
Salt to taste (if you used oil instead of butter)

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Make a well in the center and put the softened butter, eggs and rum in well. Gradually mix the flour into other ingredients. Let the mixture, which will be a paste, stand at room temperature, uncovered, for 2 hours. Divide into small balls the size of 2 tablespoons, and cook them in a waffle iron. Makes: plenty.

The batter will look something like this (a tooth-paste consistency):

waffle batter

The finished product turned out pretty good, considering they only took a few minutes to make. Definitely better than your average waffle recipe. They have that dense yeasty consistency, but no where near the quality of the street vendors in Bruges, or the Bruges vendors in SLC.

quick nearly-real belgian waffles

waffles 1 cup sifted whole wheat flour 3 tsp baking powder...

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2 Responses

Dusik writes:

July 25th, 2009 at 5:21 pm

I wanna say, that i tried the recipe, but the dough came out too thick.
i did something wrong?
i put 4.5 cups of flour, but i kinda guess that i should have put 1/2 of that amount

they were tasty though. just a bit too heavy

rjr writes:

July 25th, 2009 at 5:24 pm

You’re right. We’ve since found a better one that a friend gave us.. but this needs some forethought since the dough needs to rise.

Liege Waffle Recipe

For a Liege Waffle recipe we will need:
2 cups flour
1 cup pearl sugar
1 cup melted butter
3 eggs
1 (1/4 ounce) package yeast
1/3 cup lukewarm water
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar (add some vanilla sugar)
1/8 teaspoon salt

How to make Liege Waffles in nine easy steps:
1. Take the lukewarm water and mix in yeast, 1 1/2 tablespoon sugar and salt. Let the yeast develop for 15 minutes. In the meanwhile you can melt the butter, but be careful - do not burn it.

2. Now take a large bowl and put in the flour, make a hole in the middle, pour in the yeast that you made in step one. Also add eggs and melted butter and knead until you get nice and even dough. Then let it rest so the yeast does it’s magic and the dough doubles.

3. Now take pearl sugar and gently mix it in.

4. Again, let it rest for 15 minutes, in the meanwhile you can turn on the waffle maker so its nice and hot.

5. All there is left is to pour the waffle dough into the waffle maker and bake for 3-5 minutes. Because we mixed in the sugar late in the process it will melt and caramelize and give that special Liege waffle taste. Just be careful when you take them out of the waffle maker, caramelized sugar can make them sticky.

6. Enjoy!!