Belgian waffles – a family recipe

Tim – There’s a new writer in town! Silvy and I met during our cooking classes at PIVA, Antwerp’s biggest chef school. In class, we both aim to pursue our passion for food, hone our skills in the kitchen and have a ton of fun along the way. I’ve always had a lingering passion for writing and teaching people things, so after talking aplenty about food, food and food some more with Silvy, here we are!

I’m a web developer by trade, spending most of my time doing mental work. As such, nothing beats doing something physical and tangible like cooking in my free time. It is the ideal pastime to relax. With that in mind, and since I had my birthday recently, I set out to treat my colleagues to a true Belgian classic…

Waffles! They are like a national treasure in Belgium, so what better way to start our blog’s international journey than with some of those crunchy bits of goodness for our friends around the globe. The recipe I’m about to share is one from my aunt, who cooked it up herself decades ago. To this day it is a cornerstone of any big family gathering or party we host.

These waffles aren’t your classic, fluffy Brussels variant or the heavier, liègoise version you typically encounter as streetfood in cities. I make them smaller and lighter, with a nice crunch to them and a slight vanilla taste.

To preserve these puppies, you can store them in a tin cookie box for well over a week, preferrably wrapped in some paper towels. They usually don’t get the chance to get anywhere close to a week old though, as they have the tendency to disappear rather quickly 😉

What do you need?

• 250g self-raising flour
• 250g fine, white sugar
  • The finer the sugar, the easier it’ll melt in your dough, improving consistency
• 250g quality margarine
  • Don’t use pure farm butter, it’ll make your waffles too fat
• 3 medium sized eggs
• 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar
  • This is just for taste, feel free to add more if you like!

These ingredients will yield roughly 35 waffles. Feel free to double or triple everything, depending on the occasion.

Making your batter

1. Put a (big) pot on the stove, on a very low fire.
2. Add the butter and sugar, letting them melt to a nice blend.
3. Once you have a smooth mass, turn off the stove and keep the pot away from your heat source.
   1. This step is very important. We are about to add eggs; we don’t want to end up with an omelette!
4. Add the eggs and flour and mix everything until you have a nice, uniform batter.

Baking waffles

1. Heat up your waffle iron to a low-moderate temperature. Waffles don’t need a lot of heat.
2. Rub a bit of baking butter onto your iron with a paper towel. While not strictly necessary, this will greatly ease getting the waffles out once they’re done.
3. Add a bit of batter to each plate and close the iron.
4. It typically takes 1-2 minutes to bake 1 pair of waffles. It’ll take a few tries to get the timing right. The first couple of waffles typically burn a little, but that’s all right! They’ll still taste great.
   1. Tip: you can play around with your timing to get a nice mix of light and dark waffles, the latter being even crunchier. People like them different ways!
5. If you have an oldschool waffle iron that can be turned upside down while baking, do so halfway through. Turn the iron back a few seconds before taking the waffles out.
6. Open the iron and use a fork to gently lift the waffle from the plate, moving it to an oven grate to cool off. The waffles will still be soft in this state, so be careful.
7. After the first few pairs are done, the irons will be evenly heated and you’re off to the races. No need to add more butter after this.

That’s it! All you need at this point is some love and patience, and you’ll end up with a nice batch of genuine, Belgian waffles. Enjoy!