The first time I had liege waffles was at a Saturday farmer’s market in Toronto’s Don Valley. The next thing I knew I was in an eBay bidding war for a old stovetop Nordic Ware waffle iron. I won.
Liege waffles are rich and mouthful. They are warm like sunset, a refraction of butter and caramel. During baking the room brightens with honey and milk, churned cream and Madagascar vanilla. For only a moment a plate fills with ambers and golds, and soon the colors are gone. You must wait another day for more.
The most fundamental part of liege waffles is pearl sugar. It is coarse and opaque, which lends itself to the imagery evoked by the Finnish word for this sugar, raesokeri, or hailstone sugar. Its pea-sized mass means that it doesn’t melt at conventional baking temperatures. To break down the sugar, one must have an intense heat source like a cast iron waffle press. Most industrial waffle irons are heated to around 360 degrees F and press into the dough with about 20 pounds of pressure in order to make quick work of the sugars. However, if you’re like me and don’t own an industrial anything, a stovetop waffle iron works perfectly. It takes longer to achieve the same effect, but the same effect it achieves. As if to prove how specialized and effective my own is, when flipping the waffle iron to its opposite side, loosened pieces of pearl sugar will sometimes fall out of the iron in a curve of momentum and shatter into granules on the stovetop. The first take a bite of the waffles makes the importance of the pearl sugar immediately apparent. The effect is a soft, chewy bread with a crystallized surface and pockets of softened sugar that burst across the tongue. To me, sinking down into the caramel is like the simple pleasure of breaking a creme brulee top with a spoon.
This is a physical food. Without a standmixer, the most effective means of mixing is possibly both hands full of unincorporated ingredients. There is no other way to add the pearl sugar, and is necessary for pressing the sugar into the dough’s surface after falling out. This recipe is one that fragments your involvement unlike conventional cooking or baking that concentrates time into a final product. But to enjoy the waffles on a crisp morning on the cusp of fall, watching the sky fill with vivid colors, is to enjoy satisfaction, fullness, and richness.
- 1½ tsp active dry yeast
- ¼ cup whole milk at 110-115 degrees
- 2 tbsp + 2 tsp water at 110-115 degrees
- 2 cups King Arthur Bread flour, divided into ⅔ a cup and 1⅓ a cup.
- 1 large room temperature egg, lightly beaten
- 1 tbsp + 1 tsp light brown sugar
- ¾ tsp salt
- 8 tbsp soft room temperature unsalted butter
- 1 tbsp honey
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- ¾ cup Belgian Pearl Sugar
- Place yeast, scalded milk, and heated water into the workbowl of a stand mixer. Let the yeast moisten for a minute.
- Add the ⅔ cup of flour and the lightly beaten egg. Mix on a low speed to blend, scraping down the sides of the workbowl once or twice.
- Dust the remaining 1 and ⅓ cups of flour evenly over the dough. Do not mix the flour into the dough. Cover the bowl with a cloth and let stand 90 minutes. The dough will push up through the flour during this time. (If it doesn't, your yeast has failed.)
- Add the brown sugar and salt to the workbowl. Mix into the dough on a low speed to combine.
- Continuing to mix on a low speed, add the honey and vanilla extract to combine. Then, add the room-temperature butter a couple tablespoons at a time. Mix 4 minutes at a medium-low speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl a couple of times. Let the dough rest for 1 minute and then continue to mix for 2 minutes.
- Scrape the dough into a ball and then dust with a little flour. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rise at room temperature for 4 hours.
- Place the bowl in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to slow down yeast respiration.
- Deflate the dough with a rubber scraper, or if you are hands-on, with your hands. Collect the dough and place it on a long piece of plastic wrap. Flatten the dough in a long rectangle, then fold it in thirds like a letter. Wrap the plastic over it and refrigerate overnight. If not using the following day, the dough can be stored in an airtight container and frozen.
- On the day of use, place the cold, tough dough in a large bowl and add the pearl sugar. Mix the pearl sugar in by hand. Piece will constantly fall out, but don't worry. Once mixed, divide the dough into 12 pieces of equal size. Any pearl sugar that has fallen out of the dough can be pressed into the surface of the dough. Shape each piece of the divided dough into a ball and let rise for 90 minutes.
- Heat your waffle iron to it's baking specifications, and while the waffles are in the iron, watch you iron like a hawk. It is easy for the sugar to go beyond caramel to carcinogen. In particular, mind the caramel that accumulates after each batch of waffles. If you have a stovetop iron, make sure to flip ever couple minutes to avoid overheating each side.