Waffle Iron Shortbread: Easy to make, good enough to give away

Today we are making more waffle cookies!

Waffle Iron Shortbread 250 grams (1 cup plus 2 tbsp) margarine or butter 3 eggs 250 grams (1 cup) sugar 2 tsp vanilla, if desired ½ cup cornstarch 18 grams (1 tbsp) baking powder pinch salt About 450 grams (3 cups) flour Melt margarine and set aside to cool. (Or heat it until it's almost melted. Any remaining solid pieces will be soft enough to mix in just fine.) Thoroughly beat eggs, sugar, (cooled) butter, and vanilla. Mix cornstarch, baking powder, and salt, then place in the bowl along with about half the flour. I think these are also good with a slight bit of cinnamon-- not enough to be recognizable, but enough to add a slight little something extra to the flavor. Start stirring and then add enough flour to make a batter about the consistency of very thick sour cream. Let batter stand about 10-15 minutes. Then cook on a hot, well-greased waffle iron until lightly golden. Что бы приготовить? от Алекандра Попова (What to Cook? by Alexander Popov)

These days, I trust cooking videos that are shot at home more than professional ones. If the lighting looks like it costs more than a kitchen renovation, it's probably a content farm using trick-editing to make worthless recipes look like they actually work. (Also, after watching Russian cooking videos just to see how their kitchens are different from ours, I recognized the words "Das vedanya" at the end!)

This recipe starts with a lot of bowls. Even with a dishwasher, it's annoying to use so much counterspace and later so much rack space in the magic cleaning machine. But it was nice to have everything ready to go before I stirred a single thing together. I hate to admit it, but it was faster than my usual method of measuring each ingredient out as we get to it.

After getting everything together, it was a simple matter of stirring it into one big bowl and then letting it rest. At first I was annoyed about waiting for 10-15 minutes, but it was a perfect chance to clear off the countertops at a leisurely pace. 

Some people may recall that we got two Soviet irons and then nearly ruined one of them on the first attempt: 

This iron and I have been in a conflicted relationship ever since, but today I decided to get it out because I hadn't used it in a while. I wanted to see if it had decided that it liked life on the other side of a trans-Atlantic voyage. 

When I spooned our first mound of dough onto the iron, it looked exactly right. It's so reassuring when your batter looks just like the one in the video. It was firm, but ever-so-slightly drippy in a way that suggested it would easily become runny and spread throughout the iron.

 They fell out of the iron perfectly, and were dangerously good.

We made these again for our neighbors who have Al CaBone the 12-foot Christmas skeleton in their yard. For gift-related purposes, I used the heart-shaped iron because they're so dingdarn cute.

For whatever reason, today's batch was like cookie dough as soon as I mixed it. As I mixed, I started to have little crumbly bits even though a lot of the flour remained in its separate bowl. (Instead of pouring it back into the bag, I used it for blueberry muffins.)

As I was waiting for the waffles to cook, I noticed that they cast the purchase price onto this thing. I almost thought I could calculate the cost in modern money, then I realized that I could never figure out the year this was made.

I think it says 4 rubles, 70 kopeks.

If we could determine how old this iron is, we could find out how many years' wages it cost in Soviet Russia. But that is impossible because once they started manufacturing something in the USSR, they didn't change it until they could no longer slap the factory machinery back together. I mean, look at their cars:

And of course, it figures that I can never get the batter amount right until we reach the end of the bowl. We had oozing waffles and incomplete waffles the whole time I was making these (which doesn't matter unless I'm trying to give them away), but the last scrapings of batter finally yielded near-perfection.

Even with a few factory seconds, we happily had more than enough to give away. I always forget that this makes surprisingly small waffles. It therefore stretches your batter a lot. But full disclosure I overcooked some of them on one side. I could lie and pretend we always have perfect cookies, but we don't deceive here at A Book of Cookrye.

I tried doing a ganache drizzle on these, but it looked bad and also didn't taste as good as I hoped. And as much as I like chocolate, I don't think it's very good here. It obliterated the cookies' flavor. Fortunately, we had plenty of bare cookies left for giving purposes.

I think I simply don't like ganache. Like, it's easy, it's photogenic (most of the time), but it turns chocolate into something horribly overwhelming. I might use it as a very thin crumb-coat on future cakes, but I won't use it for much else.

Setting aside the chocolate, you don't even need to break one open to see how fluffy they are.

These waffles are delicious. If they weren't, I wouldn't have given them away with my signature on the card. They have the perfect soft-yet-dense texture of shortbread cookies. And they also had a much better shelf life than a lot of other waffles, which makes them nice for giving away.

Second-Stab Saturday: Sorry I didn't like these pizzelles as much as someone else apparently did

I couldn't let go of the pizzelle recipe that covered an entire box. As a reminder:

Est! Est!! Est!!! Pizzelles 6 eggs 1 tsp vanilla 1 tbsp anise extract, or ¼ tsp anise oil 1 tsp orange or lemon extract 1 cup sugar 1 cup butter or oil Pinch of salt 2¼-2½ cups flour 2 tsp baking powder If using butter, melt it and set it aside to cool. Combine flour and baking powder in a sifter, set aside. Beat eggs and flavorings with an electric mixer until very light. Gradually add the sugar, beating the whole time. Beat until very thick. Gradually pour in the butter or oil, beating on high speed the whole time. Then set aside the mixer. Sift in the flour and stir it in by hand. Cook on a hot pizzelle iron until crisp and golden. If desired, take out about a third of the batter. Mix in ¼ cup cocoa powder. Cut this into the rest of the batter for a marbled effect. (Note: Apparently lots of people can make chocolate pizzelles, but the cocoa powder makes them stick horribly to the iron every time I try. So beware!) Source: handwritten recipe on a pizzelle iron box

Whoever wrote this recipe gave it the entire side of a pizzelle iron box, like they were declaring that this was the one and only. You don't do that with a dud. I decided to bring the recipe back to its native iron.

As I mentioned last time, I happen to have the same iron that this recipe came with. This isn't as much a coincidence as you may think. This seems to be one of the most common stovetop pizzelle iron designs, and I can see why. First, it looks really pretty. Second, it lets go of waffles ever-so-easily. With other irons, I often need to get out a fork and gently ease the pizzelles out of the grooves. But they fall right out of this one.

I wanted to give this recipe a fair shake, mostly because apparently someone really liked it. So on a lovely chilly night, I fired up the record player, cleared off the counters, and made pizzelles.

As much as I hate to admit it, it seems like the best pizzelle irons come from Ohio.* Our Pennsylvania iron turned this recipe into bendy wafers, but they were a lot thinner and crisper when cooked on a Cleveland native. But they were still oddly flexible and their texture just wasn't the best. I won't make these again, but I didn't throw the rest out.

They did photograph very well, though.

*Ohio has a large Italian community-- particularly in the greater Cleveland area, which may be why pizzelles are more common among Italian-Americans than still-in-Italy Italians. It is speculated that Cleveland's metalworking industry made it a lot easier to produce specialized waffle irons.
As for why I would have problems with Ohio and the cookware made in that state, it's for (admittedly shallow) personal reasons. For those who missed it, I got into making pizzelles after a bad breakup with someone whose family is from Ohio, which has left me salty about the entire state.↪

Evelyn's Pizzelles

Today, we are making more pizzelle recipes that I could have bought!

Evelyn's Pizzelles 3 cups flour 1 tsp baking powder 6 eggs 1 tsp anise oil or other flavor 1 cup sugar 1 cup cooking oil Combine flour and baking powder in a sifter, set aside. Beat eggs and anise oil (or your flavoring of choice) with an electric mixer until very light. Gradually add the sugar, beating the whole time. Beat until very thick. Gradually pour in the oil, beating on high speed the whole time. Then set aside the mixer. Sift in the flour and stir it in by hand. Cook on a hot pizzelle iron until crisp and golden. Source: handwritten recipe taped onto a pizzelle iron box

Some readers may recall that I was recommended (and then did not buy) the same pizzelle iron I already have, which came in its original box with a lot of recipes pasted onto it. For whatever reason, I loved the idea of making pizzelles that could have been made on the same iron that is perched above the refrigerator (or at least, one that came out of the same molds). And recipes with a name attached always seem extra-special, even if they're all strangers to me.

Obviously, I have no idea who the Evelyn in "Evelyn's Pizzelles" was. But we lived up the street from someone named Evelyn, who presumably had a last name but was "Miss Evelyn" to everyone who knew her. (Her husband, "Mister Evelyn," was just quietly in the background.) Every time we came by her house, she treated us like we were there every week. She also always gamely bought overpriced gift wrap and figurines whenever we went door to door selling things from those horrible school fundraiser catalogs.

Anyway, today's pizzelle recipe looks similar to a lot of the other ones we've made, except for one crucial ingredient change: 

Yes, instead of melting shortening or butter, Evelyn uses cooking oil! I've always associated cooking oil with cake mix, which (especially these days) tastes like a placeholder for a real cake. But who am I to dispute someone's written directions? More so than any other time I've made pizzelles, this part felt like making mayonnaise. After getting all the oil into the batter, it was noticeably deflated but still foamy.

Our recipe says "anise oil or other flavor." I was not sure that anise extract (which is not the same as anise oil but it's what I had on hand) and peanut oil would go together. But who am I to argue with a barely-legible recipe? If it's written down, it must have worked for someone.

This seemed like I should have poured it into cake pans instead of spooning onto a waffle iron. I have never made pizzelles from such a runny batter. (Though of course, I am still barely experienced.)

Because I wanted to try these without a stovetop fuss, I made them the modern, electric way.  I use the stovetop irons when I want to have a lovely meditative experience in the kitchen, but the electric one is so fast I almost think I'm cheating. It feels like I'm zapping pizzelles into existence.

Our pizzelles were ready just a few seconds after closing the iron. Evelyn's batter didn't expand as much as I thought it would, so our first pizzelles were sad and runty.

These pizzelles challenged all my previous beliefs about cooking oil and lousy baked goods. They were really good. I can't tell if the oil made a difference or if I was imagining it. They were a lot like the Fante's pizzelles, but lighter and less substantial. It's easier to eat five instead of two of these.

I will say that these weren't bendy like the other ones from this box, but they weren't as fragile as the other pizzelles we've made either. I don't think I could wrangle a stack of Fante's pizzelles into a cramped sandwich bag like this. So Evelyn's pizzelles are perfect for giving away.

Whoever Evelyn was, she had a darn good recipe. I hope whoever actually bought the iron tries it.

Est! Est!! Est!!! Pizzelles

Somebody really liked this recipe.

Est! Est!! Est!!! Pizzelles 6 eggs 1 tsp vanilla 1 tbsp anise extract, or ¼ tsp anise oil 1 tsp orange or lemon extract 1 cup sugar 1 cup butter or oil Pinch of salt 2¼-2½ cups flour 2 tsp baking powder If using butter, melt it and set it aside to cool. Combine flour and baking powder in a sifter, set aside. Beat eggs and flavorings with an electric mixer until very light. Gradually add the sugar, beating the whole time. Beat until very thick. Gradually pour in the butter or oil, beating on high speed the whole time. Then set aside the mixer. Sift in the flour and stir it in by hand. Cook on a hot pizzelle iron until crisp and golden. If desired, take out about a third of the batter. Mix in ¼ cup cocoa powder. Cut this into the rest of the batter for a marbled effect. (Note: Apparently lots of people can make chocolate pizzelles, but the cocoa powder makes them stick horribly to the iron every time I try. So beware!) Source: handwritten recipe on a pizzelle iron box

I've been rehoming unwanted clutter on Ebay, which is kind of fun if you're not in it for the money. It's amusing to see how far across the country your junk--- I mean, your under-cherished treasures--- can go. Every now and then while I'm waiting for my listing photos to upload, I'll look at the suggested merchandise. Because I've already gotten everything I want, I am now immune to ill-advised purchases. (However, I am not above helping myself to interesting things I find on the curb.) This pizzelle iron turned up, and I knew I wouldn't buy it because I already have the same one perched on top of the refrigerator. (Again, I already have everything I want.)

Whoever first owned this iron wrote today's recipe on the box in big enough letters to cover the entire side of it. That is even more commitment than permanently writing a recipe into the blank pages at the end of a cookbook. Maybe they were like "This is the recipe. There are other pizzelle recipes, but I choose this one for now and for always." Naturally, I had make it.

As with so many pizzelles, this recipe starts off with beating the eggs until Miss Leslie would have approved. This is why I really love having a stand mixer in my life. I simply had to turn it on and leave it alone, which freed me to clear off counterspace to make room for the impending cooling racks. Within a minute or two, the egg (just the one, we're cutting down the recipe) looked like this.

This is only one egg.

This really is the kind of recipe that electric mixers were made for. Whipping everything into a beige custard would be an arduous ordeal if we were doing it by hand. Even a handcranked eggbeater would have left our hands a bit sore. But today, our pre-flour mixture formed peaks in less than five minutes. It also tasted insanely good, in large part because I added a truly excessive splash of almond extract.

Our recipe box (literally a recipe box!) tells us to add anise. I've learned that apparently anise is the traditional pizzelle flavoring, but it's not my favorite extract to add to the batter. So I left it out. (However, I love adding powdered star anise to chocolate fudge. As a bonus, everyone else thinks it tastes weird, so I get to eat all of it!)

After adding the flour, I could tell this was supposed to be on the cake-batter end of pizzelles instead of a firm dough. However, it was a little bit curdled. So I added a smidge more flour than the recipe called for. 

Now, if I wanted to make these exactly like the original writer did, I would have made these on the stovetop iron that is identical to the one this recipe came with. But I wanted to get out the electric one and justify having bothered some unsuspecting electricians to fix its wiring. The batter looked unexpectedly pretty when it landed.

The lid put up some resistance when I tried to open it. I was already bracing myself for failure, because that usually means the batter has stuck to both sides of the iron and glued it shut. But after a few moments of gentle prising, the iron opened without tearing the pizzelless. However, they were were firmly attached to the lid of the iron.

I still haven't gotten the hang of putting the right amount of batter onto my electric iron. They're either runty or they ooze.

To my own surprise, I managed to lift them off in a single sheet. I fully expected to destroy them in my attempts to dislodge them from the iron. On a barely-related note, I love imagining generations of people saying that those fluffy bits of hot dough between the pizzelles are for the person working the iron.

These tasted like they wanted to be crisper than they ended up. I know I didn't undercook them because they had turned a lovely golden color. But even after these cooled completely, they were almost soft. On the one hand, I like pizzelles to be really crispy. But on the other hand, these didn't break into messy shards when you bit into them. And of course, I don't know enough about pizzelles to get away with being opinionated about them. These seem like they'd be really good with some sort of custard or cream spread onto them, or maybe clapped together with a filling like stroopwafels. Which I just might do in the near-ish future.

Golden Crisp Waffles

I don't think anyone can throw away a jar of screws.

Golden Crisp Waffles 2 cups sifted flour 2 tsp baking powder ½ tsp salt 3 eggs, separated 1¼ cup milk ⅓ cup shortening, melted In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat together the egg yolks and milk. Then add them and the shortening to the dry ingredients. Whisk together until mixed. (You might not get all of the lumps out, but don't worry too much about it.) Beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. Quickly but thoroughly fold them into the batter. Cook on a hot, well-greased waffle iron. Serve hot, with butter and syrup. Source: old Calumet baking powder tin (probably 1950s)

This recipe sort of comes to us from nearly the same source as my great-grandmother's binder. When we were emptying out the apartment, we found a lot of screws carefully sorted into Calumet baking powder tins. Like, a lot of Calumet tins. Apparently, they had some serious brand loyalty to Calumet baking powder in that house. 

We had a lot more Calumet tins than this one box, but I gave them to trick-or-treaters when we ran out of candy.

 

Anyway, I was in the mood for waffles and decided it'd be fun to deviate from my usual recipe (which is "prepare the mix according to box directions"). I was pleasantly surprised to find that you're nearly ready for the waffle iron after getting all your ingredients in a line. Sure, you have to beat the egg whites, but that only takes a minute or two now that electric mixers aren't priced like a lifetime investment.

After stirring everything together, I began to suspect that the Calumet people had sent in a faulty recipe to whoever printed their can labels. The directions say to stir the whites "quickly but thoroughly into batter" and we didn't have a batter. We had a paste.

To my grim lack of surprise, the egg whites deflated completely. I could have just stirred them in and gotten exactly where we are now with fewer dirty dishes. Perhaps the people at Calumet added some pointless extra steps to help you, the home cook, feel like you're not lazy. Or maybe someone had some truly pedantic views about cooking and felt that unbeaten egg whites were as disgraceful as lumpy gravy.

Even though finishing the recipe seemed like disappointment with added effort, our "batter" and iron were both ready. So, I put a big sticky splot of it into place and got it onto the stove. 

Incidentally, I'm not turning into a stovetop waffle snob, even though I haven't used an electric waffle iron in a while. This is just my idea of a good time. 

Although the first round of waffles was thoroughly cooked, I thought they looked rather pale. And the recipe promises us golden crisp waffles. With that in mind, I let the next batch of them cook until I thought they were golden enough.

If we break one open, we can see that they were surprisingly fluffy in the middle. I thought this could be why Calumet people used this recipe on their cans. That single spoonful of white powder worked a miracle on our waffle paste. They were a little dry, but we fixed that with extra syrup.

I glanced again at the recipe as I was cleaning up and discovered why my waffle batter had become a hard, sticky mess. I had cut the milk in half.

Because I love waffles as much as I love giving a recipe a fair chance, I made these again. It turns out that when you actually use the correct amount of each ingredient, a recipe goes a lot better. After stirring everything together, we had a batter just like the instructions say we should. But even though the recipe says to "mix only until smooth," that never happened. The lumps in the batter got smaller at first, but eventually they stopped shrinking. I figured that a lot of muffin recipes tell you that you're going to have some lumps left in the batter, and also managed a half-finished thought about "old-fashioned" and "homemade charm."

I kind of suspected that the batter would squish all the bubbles out of egg whites just like last time. They seemed so fragile when they landed on top. However, the batter was actually a bit puffier afterward. After our first mismeasured failure, I was so happy to see a recipe following its own directions.

And so, with a lot of optimism and delight, we poured our first correctly-made golden crisp waffles onto the iron. Unlike our previous sticky mess, this looked like the recipe was going right.

Four minutes later, we opened the iron and found these! I don't usually put butter onto waffles, but who am I to contravene the official written directions?

These were the best waffles I've had in a long time. Their crisp outer crust gives way to a wonderfully soft interior. And they're sturdy enough to take a lot of syrup on top. If I'm making a hot breakfast in the early morning (whether for myself or anyone else), I will use waffle mix. However, this is a great recipe for midnight waffles.

In closing, I have to credit the Calumet people for creating such a forgiving recipe. If your ingredient amounts are a long ways off, you will probably still get decent waffles. That's especially reassuring for those people who, for whatever reason, decided to make them for breakfast and therefore ended up measuring out ingredients at an unspeakable hour of the morning. 

I could be chipper and try to claim that if you measure all the ingredients out the night before, this recipe is a breeze to throw together in time for breakfast. However, neither I nor anyone I know has that kind of homemaking panache. But if you want waffles at an hour when you're already awake, this is a great recipe for them.

Gingerbread Waffles: Exactly what I hoped for

'Tis the season to not turn the oven on!

Gingerbread Waffles 2 cups flour 1½ tsp baking powder ½ cup baking soda ¼ tsp salt 2 tsp. cinnamon 1 tsp. ginger ½ cup shortening 1 cup molasses (12 ounces if you're using a kitchen scale) 2 eggs, separated ½ cup buttermilk or sour cream Place the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices into a sifter. Set aside. Thoroughly beat the shortening and molasses until thoroughly blended. Then beat in the egg yolks. Sift in the dry ingredients, a little at a time, adding them alternately with the buttermilk. Mix well. Beat the egg whites stiff, then fold them in. Cook on a hot, well-greased waffle iron. Source: Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933, via The Internet Archive

I saw this recipe when I was flipping through Mrs. Mary Martensen's cookbook, which I've come to like a lot. You might not think a recipe book from the depths of the Great Depression would have many good options, but most of the recipes look really good. This one in particular has a lot of molasses, it involves a waffle iron, and (as a result of the latter point) means I don't need to turn on the oven in this miserable heat. It's like Mrs. Mary Martensen had a reverse-seance and wrote a recipe just for me.

Mrs. Mary Martensen's Century of Progress Cook Book (recipes from The Chicago American), 1933

We are first directed to beat together the molasses and the shortening. This is when I noticed that today's gingerbread uses only molasses. There isn't any extra sugar added. I never knew I could feel so deeply glad I didn't halve a recipe. If the waffles were bad, the batter at least would be amazing.

 

The molasses and the shortening were a semi-curdled mess, but the egg yolks helped everything coalesce into what looked like a really good blondie batter. 

The recipe calls for sour milk, which was a lot easier in the pre-pasteurization days. From what I understand, raw milk contains the right bacteria to go sour instead of just expiring. Of course, raw milk also has the right bacteria to make you very sick. And even if today's waffles are getting cooked which eliminates the risk of disease, I'm not keeping bottles of germs in the refrigerator. So even though raw milk is easier to get today than it has ever been in this millennium (and has somehow become a political cause for those people with angry eagle car decals), I used sour cream instead.

Tastes like food safety and tacos!

Our batter was soon ready except for the whipped egg whites. And yes, it tasted amazing.

I didn't know if the egg whites would fluff this up or deflate on contact. But afterward, our batter did seem a bit looser.

Our first waffles stuck to the iron even though I made sure to brush it with lots of shortening. I managed to get scratch all the residue out with a wooden skewer, leaving me with a lot of hard batter shavings. This was the best I managed to save.

I gave my iron grease some thought. Before pizzelles taught me otherwise, I always and only used cooking spray. After learning better, I swore my loyalty to melted shortening and a brush. But maybe I had been wrong to completely forsake the spray can. I spritzed the iron and the next waffles fell out of the iron perfectly.

So, we have learned that there is moderation and nuance in all pan fats. But what do we think of the recipe itself?

I am so glad I made these. They taste exactly like what I hoped for. They were light and fluffy rather than dense. You can't really make a gingerbread house out of these (or at least, not a very big one), so you'll have to eat them instead. In short, they were exactly what I thought I'd get at the top of the recipe. If you like molasses and spices, you owe it to yourself.