Minnie's Pizzelles: They're ever-so-light!

I don't know who Minnie is, but she is famous for her pizzelles.

Minnie's Pizzelles By Barbara D’Addario, whose mother is famous for her pizzelle. 4 tbsp margarine 3½ tbsp sugar 3 eggs 1½ tsp anise extract 1 cup flour Cream together margarine and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time. (Mixture will become very runny.) Add anise with one of the eggs. Beat mixture vigorously. Add flour gradually, continuing to beat vigorously, until there are no lumps. The mixture should ribbon when dropped from a spoon back into the bowl, like pancake batter. Bake on a hot pizzelle iron until golden. Source: Fante's Kitchen via The Internet Archive

After Thanksgiving, I told myself that I would eat mostly vegetables to compensate for the feast. I then spent the next week microwaving the leftover carbs that I was sent home with. Sometimes it's nice to just put my feet up and let microwave make dinner for a while-- especially when said dinner is macaroni and cheese with a side of cornbread. But eventually, the urge to play with my kitchen toys struck again.

They've been dormant for so long!

Fante's website tells us that this recipe comes from someone who "is famous for her pizzelle." We appreciate that she let the world have the recipe (or at least, shared it with the people who find Fante's pizzelle page). A lot of people are so possessive of their kitchen files. 

Right away, Minnie's pizzelle recipe is different from every other I've made. Admittedly, I've only made a handful of them. Instead of melting (and cooling) the butter and then whipping the eggs, the directions sound like we're making a cake. "Cream the butter and sugar, add eggs one at a time..." Of course, I reduced the recipe amounts to one egg. But the tiny piles of ingredients made me wonder if perhaps I cut down the recipe too much.

I creamed the butter and sugar as directed. I know we only have a few small clumps of ingredients splattered onto the sides of the bowl, but you can take my word that they are well-mixed and properly fluffed up.

Minnie's recipe uses anise extract, which meant I had an excuse to get out the bottle of it that I bought ages ago and never found any suitable recipes for. Unfortunately, I was so excited to use the anise extract that I missed the measuring spoon and poured a huge puddle of it right into the bowl. The batter tasted foul-- and this is coming from someone who likes black licorice. But I figured that even if the pizzelles tasted horrible, I could imagine away the excess extract and see how much I like the recipe itself. 

When I beat in the egg, everything turned into a watery mess. At this point, I put down the paper I had written the recipe on and went back to the source. I really wanted to find a mistake that could explain the almost certain failure that was sloshing around in the mixing bowl. First, I double-checked the recipe amounts. Then I redid my math from reducing everything to a third. But no matter how many times I recalculated, I got the same numbers. So if the recipe is wrong, it's because of a mistype on the website.

Upon returning to the mixing bowl after our short interlude with a calculator, the butter flecks had all floated to the top of the watery mess. It looked like one of those sponge puddings that separate into layers while baking. But even though this watery mess looked like no pizzelle or cake recipe I have ever made, I reminded myself that Minnie is famous for her pizzelles and I am not. (However, I am now slightly noted among my Italian friends' parents for being too daffy to use an electric iron.)

I sifted in the flour and hoped that the resulting batter would "ribbon" as the instructions claimed. I would even have accepted a batter that was slightly too runny to form ribbons. After all, Minnie didn't foresee the pandemic-induced crisis of butter moisture. 

My faith in both Minnie's recipe was restored by the time I set down the whisk. The finished mixture formed ribbons when you dripped it off the spoon, just like the recipe said. It had the texture of really good pancake batter.

We were theoretically ready to cook our pizzelles. However, a lot of pizzelle guides (including Fante's, from whence this recipe comes) advise that you should only use batter-like recipes on electric irons. For stovetop irons, you should add enough extra flour to turn the batter into a dough. In other words, making this recipe on top of the stove was ill-advised.

As the iron heated up, I tried to convince myself that a hot iron is a hot iron, whether it sits on a burner or on the countertop. I didn't believe my own lies, but then I told myself that I am allowed some culinary stupidity since I have no Italian relatives to show me how it's done. And so, I brushed the iron with melted shortening, spooned batter on it, and clamped it shut. I was afraid the batter would overflow the iron and drip down the sides, but it somehow didn't.

Now, waffle irons always emit steam when you put batter in them. But Minnie's pizzelles made a lot more than any other waffle iron recipe I've ever used. Our pizzelle iron turned into a squeaky steam whistle.

As the pizzelles cooked, all of the excessive anise extract boiled out from inside the iron. The kitchen soon smelled like suspiciously like cheap cough syrup. The foul odor ruined our happy pizzelle-making experience, and would hover in the house for a few days. But as the anise-loaded steam shot out of the iron like I had added jet nozzles, I began to hope that our pizzelles would taste nice instead of bitter. These thoughts soon led to wondering if there's any point to adding extract at all. Does it all get cooked out?

I should also note that while I was making these, I had some towels in the dryer which is in the kitchen. The next time I dried my face after showering, I got a big noseful of anise.

Back to the recipe, we only got five pizzelles out of the batter. Granted, I cut the ingredients down to one-sixth. But all five of our pizzelles were really pretty. And they fell right out of the iron without even trying to stick.

I've noted this before (often), but I remain amazed at how much better shortening is on waffle irons than cooking spray. This wispy translucent thing, and all the others like it, slid right off without ripping.

 Minnie's pizzelles were ever-so light and crisp. They reminded me a lot of rice crackers, to the point that I want to try swapping in rice flour just to see what happens. I think these would be really good in the summertime with whipped cream and fresh fruit on top. At the opposite end of the year, these would be a perfect light finish after a heavy holiday dinner that is 90% butter. 

They'd also be really amazing if you rolled them into tubes and squirted cannoli filling into them. I think cannolis are traditionally fried (but don't quote me on that), but Minnie's pizzelles seem perfect for it.

In other words, I can see why Minnie is famous for her pizzelles. I'm not throwing out the paper I wrote her recipe on.