Every year in my small town we have a Scandinavian festival with lots of fun craft booths and delicious food booths. It gets pretty busy around the food and this year's was no different. While the booth for the Sanpete barbeque turkey is predictably popular and over-priced, my favorite food booth is for the stroopwafel.
Who can resist a delicately thin and crispy belgian waffle sandwiched between a rich caramel sauce? Not I. This is definitely my kind of dessert.
Well this year, thoughtful me, bought three. One for my dad, one for my husband, and one for myself. I had full intentions of going back for a few more that day to save and go nicely with my morning coffee the next day, but when I went back to the booth they had SOLD OUT!
Devastated, I quickly vowed to my inner child that she and I would find that devil-of-a-machine that made waffles so incredibly thin and crispy and then make as many as it would take to satisfy my inner child.
Well I did, we did? And now she is satisfied.
Wafel
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cup lightly packed brown sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
Mix the first three dry ingredients together; set aside. Mix the next three wet ingredients and whisk until combined. Add the dry to the wet and mix; then fold in the butter at the end. Cover mixing bowl and set aside.
Stroop
6 Tbsp butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 tsp water
2 Tbsp light corn syrup
Mix all ingredients together in a sauce pan and stir until butter is melted and sugar is dissolved. Then cover with a lid and let cook for three minutes on low heat. Uncover and let cool.
Heat pizzelle maker or wafel maker (this one works perfectly). Let heat for 4-5 mins then, with an ice cream ball scooper scoop out level dough and plop in the middle of iron and close for 60-90 seconds but no more, otherwise it will burn.
Immediately pull out with a fork and with a very sharp non-serrated knife, slice the wafel in half. I like to slightly spin the wafel while I am slicing. Make sure you slice while it's still very hot.
Once the wafel is halved, spread on some syrup and gently close and press the wafel together. Continue with all of the wafels.
Upon taste, I was delighted to find that this recipe, along with the thin waffle maker, tasted EXACTLY like the stroopwafel at the festival. Once the wafel and stroop were combined and allowed to cool they became crispy and were not soft. Also, the cinnamon in the dough lent a very subtle warm flavor which complemented the caramel stroop beautifully.
Now. Put on a pot of coffee or tea and pour into your finest teacup or mug then balance these decadent wafels atop the cup so that the steam softly melts the filling inside. Delicious!
*This process actually went pretty fast because the wafels cook so fast as soon as you are done slicing the wafels and spreading, the next batch is ready.
