Stroopwafel

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INGREDIENTS – WAFFLE

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¼ cup milk, warm

2¼ teaspoon yeast

½ cup butter, softened (⅔ cup more later)

2 eggs

¼ teaspoon salt

2¼ cups flour

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INGREDIENTS – FILLING

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⅔ cup brown sugar

⅓ cup butter, softened

⅔ cup brown sugar

3 tablespoons light corn syrup*

3 tablespoons molasses*

¾ teaspoon cinnamon

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* = Or substitute stroop syrup for these two ingredients. Stroop syrup can be found online.

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INGREDIENT – ASSEMBLY

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no-stick spray

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SPECIAL UTENSILS

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electric beater

pizzelle maker

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Serves 6. Takes 1 hour 15 minutes

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PREPARATION – WAFFLE

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Add warm milk and yeast to small mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended. Add ½ cup butter, eggs, and salt. Mix with electric beater set on medium until well blended. Add flour and knead until a smooth dough ball forms. Divide dough ball into 12 mini dough balls. Cover with cloth and set aside for 1 hour.

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PREPARATION – FILLING

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Add all filling ingredients to pan. Stir over low heat until butter and brown sugar melt. Let sit for 10 minutes.

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PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY

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Spray pizzelle make with no-stick spray. Add a mini dough ball to center of each spot in the pizzelle maker. Press down on mini dough ball with spatula or oven mitt until it gets to about ½” of the edge of each pizzelle spot. Use pizzelle maker’s instructions to cook mini dough balls into cookies. Remove cookies. Use spatula to spread 1½ tablespoons filling over all of 1 cookie. Place a 2nd cookie on top of cookie with filling to form Stroopwafel. Repeat until all cookies have been used.

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TIDBITS

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1) Many people wonder how to pronounce “stroop” in Stroopwafel.

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2) Is it pronounced stroop or stroop?

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3) In fact, the second pronunciation is correct.

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4) Now you know.

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5) For the longest time, I never made this dessert as I had never thought this dessert was worth the money needed to buy a pizzelle.

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6) Pizzelle is a strange looking word.

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7) Anyway, I got a pizzelle maker for Christmas. Apparently Santa thought I had been rather well behaved.

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8) And indeed, I had indeed carried myself with distinction.

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9) Okay mostly.

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10) Well, just enough of the time to merit a pizzelle maker.

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11) I’m not giving it back. I’m not! I’m not, not even if I received it by mistake.

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12) How could I have received a pizzelle maker by mistake?

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13) I’m guessing that Santa’s sleigh made quite a sharp turn over my chimney to avoid a drone and a pizzelle making came tumbling down out of the toy sack.

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14) Santa hates drones for this very reason.

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15) More and more people and companies are buying drones. The Christmas Eve sky gets ever more difficult for Santa and his deer to navigate.

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16) Culinary Santologists say that Santa’s planning to deploy missile-defense systems on his sleigh for next year’s present run. Now, we’ll really see who’s naughty or nice. Ho! Ho! Ho!

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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.