Belgian cuisine
Liège waffles
Gaufre de Liège
Dense yeasted waffles from a stiff dough with pearl sugar that caramelises on the outside.
- Prep
- 100 min
- Cook
- 25 min
- Total
- 125 min
- Difficulty
- Medium
Ingredients
- Flour500 g
- Milk — warm180 ml
- Dry yeast10 g
- Butter — softened250 g
- Eggs2
- Brown sugar60 g
- Pearl sugar250 g
- Vanilla1 tsp
- Cinnamon½ tsp
- Salt1 tsp
Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.
Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.
Method
- 1
Dissolve the yeast in the warm milk and leave it ten minutes, until it foams.
12 min
- 2
Knead a dough from the flour, yeast mixture, eggs, brown sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and salt.
12 min
- 3
Work in the softened butter in stages, kneading until the dough is smooth and elastic.
15 min
- 4
Let it rise somewhere warm for an hour and a half, until doubled.
92 min
- 5
Work the pearl sugar in by hand, distributing it evenly but without long kneading.
8 min
- 6
Divide the dough into ten lumps and rest them fifteen minutes.
18 min
- 7
Bake them in the iron three minutes each, to a deep gold with a caramel crust.
25 min
About the dish
The dough here is stiff rather than liquid — it is kneaded by hand like bread dough. A Liège waffle is not poured into the iron but laid in as a lump and flattens itself.
Pearl sugar cannot be replaced with ordinary sugar. The large crystals do not dissolve into the dough and caramelise on the surface into crisp spots; granulated sugar simply dissolves.
The sugar is worked in at the very end, after proving. Added earlier it draws moisture from the dough and starts melting before the iron.
Worth knowing
- — Wipe the iron after every waffle. Melted sugar catches on the plates and turns bitter on the next one.
- — The waffles are eaten warm and plain. In Liège nothing is poured over them — the sugar inside is enough.
- — The dough freezes well in lumps. Thaw it in the fridge overnight and bake it straight from there.
Nutrition
Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.
- Calories
- 480 kcal
- Protein
- 7 g
- Fat
- 24 g
- Carbs
- 60 g
More from Belgian cuisine
- Moules marinières — Mussels steamed in white wine with celery and onion. Five minutes under a lid, no longer.
- Carbonade flamande — Beef braised in dark beer with onion and a slice of mustard-spread bread that thickens the sauce.
- Waterzooi — A Ghent stew of chicken or fish in a creamy broth with julienned root vegetables.