552 cereal doughs and batters

Modern waffle recipes are often essen-

GRIDDLE CAKES:
WAFFLES AND WAFERS
Waffles and wafers have two things in com-
mon: the root word for their names, and
the unique method by which they’re
cooked. Their flour-water mixture is spread
in a thin layer and pressed between two
heated and embossed metal plates, which
spread them even thinner, conduct heat
into them rapidly, and imprint them with
an attractive and often useful pattern. The
usual square indentations increase the area
of crisp, browned surface and collect the
butter, syrup, and other enrichments that
are often added on top. The French version,
the gaufre, goes back to medieval times,
when street vendors would make them to
order and serve them hot on religious feast
days.
Today the difference between wafers
and waffles is a matter of texture. Wafers
are thin, dry, crisp, and when high in sugar
are dense, almost hard. The most familiar
wafer is the ice cream cone; there are also
French cookies called gaufres that are sim-
ilar to very thin, crisp tuiles. Waffles came
to the United States from Holland in the
18th century and are thicker, lighter, and
more delicate thanks to leavening by either
yeast or a baking powder, which interrupts
the cooked structure with gas bubbles.
They’re served fresh and hot, their honey-
comb structure filled with butter or syrup.
tially a lean pancake batter cooked in a
waffle iron instead of on a griddle, and
they often produce a disappointing result
that is more leathery than crisp. Crispness
requires a high proportion of fat, sugar, or
both: otherwise the batter essentially steams
rather than fries, the flour proteins and
starch absorb too much softening water,
and the surface ends up tough.
CREAM PUFF PASTRY,
PÂTE À CHOUX
Choux is the French word for “cabbage,”
and choux pastry forms little irregular cab-
bage-like balls that are hollow inside like
popovers. Unlike popovers, choux pastry
becomes firm and crisp when baked. It pro-
vides the classic container for cream fillings
in such pastries as cream puffs (profiteroles)
and éclairs, and also makes such savory
bites as cheese-flavored gougères and deep-
fried beignets, whose lightness inspired the
name pets de nonne, “nun’s farts.”
Choux paste was apparently invented in
late medieval times, and is prepared in a
very distinctive way. It’s a cross between a
batter and a dough, and is cooked twice:
once to prepare the paste itself, and once to
transform the paste into hollow puffs. A
large amount of water and some fat are
brought to the boil in a pan, the flour is
added, and the mixture stirred and cooked

An Early French Waffle Recipe

Waffles of Milk or Cream

Put a litron [13 oz/375 g] of flour in a bowl, break in two or three eggs and mix together
while adding some cream or milk and a pinch of salt. Add a piece the size of two eggs
of freshly made cream cheese, or simply soft cheese from whole milk, and a quarteron
[4 oz/125 g] of melted butter. If you only add a half quarteron of butter, that is
enough provided that you add a half quarteron of good beef marrow crushed very small.
Mix all this together, and when it is well bound, one should put the waffle irons on
the fire, and make the waffles. These waffles should be eaten while they’re hot.
—La Varenne, Le Cuisinier françois, 1651