Just-Stir-It-Together Pizzelles: or, I never thought I'd make these

Today, we are making the first pizzelle recipe I ever saw.

Pizzelles 2 cups all-purpose flour* 1 cup sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder ¾ cup margarine or butter, melted and cooled 1 tablespoon anise extract or vanilla 4 eggs Whisk together all ingredients. Cook 1 tablespoon at a time on a hot pizzelle iron, following manufacturer's instructions. Use a knife to push the dough off of the spoon. Brush the iron with melted shortening before the first pizzelles. You may not need to re-brush it before each pizzelle, but you definitely need to do it the first time. *If using self-rising flour, omit baking powder. Source: Betty Crocker's 40th Anniversary Edition Cookbook, 1991

It turns out that a lot of Betty Crocker cookbooks are on the Internet Archive, including the edition we had growing up. (The pages fell out of Mom's copy ages ago, so she threw it out.)

After a lot of windowshopping when I just want to look at pretty geometric designs, I can actually tell what brand that iron is even though they cropped out the logo.

Back when I made the brownies on the same page, I would stare at this picture while I was waiting for the baking time to elapse. (It was more fun than cleaning up after myself.) But we didn't have a pizzelle iron in the house. Even normal waffle irons came and went as we abused and broke them. (Very few countertop appliances are child-resilient.) But now that we have arguably too many pizzelle irons in the house, I thought it'd be fun to make these.

It turns out the instructions are extremely short: "Mix all ingredients." And the batter tasted so good that I nearly didn't bother cooking it.

I was a little concerned because the official picture looked like a thin batter that poured into place, but mine made semi-stiff mounds. 

The directions say to cook for "30 seconds or until golden brown." Which, come to think of it, is about as long as it takes to say one Hail Mary per side as I was advised when I first got help and advice. But today, I hailed Mary a bit too slowly. Things looked a lot better the second time, and every time onward.

The first one is always for the fairies.

These tasted exactly like I'd always imagined they would. They're so crisp, airy, and fragile. They're like if you poured cake batter onto a waffle iron, but with a much better texture. They're a bit tricky to take anywhere because they're so delicate, but that is what makes them so good. After this lovely experience, don't be surprised to see a few more recipes from this book that made me say "I always wondered if those were any good..."