Liege Waffles EN

 

I tried them for the first time in London, in 2009 at Covent Garden. Incredible taste! I tried to see how they made them and I saw that it was not mush but dough that they baked. I searched the internet and found out about Liege waffles.

When we visited Brussels years later I asked the shops that sold waffles and finally I found one! Their taste is divine. This waffle does not need any accompaniment! It is in itself a complete dessert.

I had to cook them but I had a problem! I could not find the sugar pearls needed to caramelize. It is not easy to find these pearls, I have not seen them anywhere! In Spain I found pearls but small ones that are for buns.

Finally the solution came from the internet! You can make pearls by breaking sugar cubes and it worked! I just put the cubes in a zip bag and carefully break with the hammer in whatever size I want!

Make the dough ideally in the mixer because it sticks a lot at the beginning. But it can be kneaded with a wooden spoon by hand.

Taste them hot as soon as they come out of the waffle iron, plain and they will enchant you!

Store them in tightly closed bags and just warm them a little before enjoying them.

Ingredients for 14 waffles:

450-470gr flour for all uses

3/4 cup lukewarm milk (190gr), (1 cup = 240ml)

1 sachet dry yeast (7-8gr)

2 tablespoons sugar 

2 large eggs at room temperature

170gr melted butter and lukewarm

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 teaspoon salt 

200gr sugar pearls for waffles

Dissolve yeast and sugar in the lukewarm milk and leave for 5' to activate the yeast.

Mix in the mixer bowl 450gr flour and salt.

Make a puddle and add the yeast mixture, vanilla extract and beaten eggs. Knead on medium speed until the ingredients are mixed. Add the melted butter and as soon as it homogenised knead at high speed for 2'. If the dough is too sticky, add the 20gr of flour. The dough should be very soft, do not add any more flour.

Cover the bowl with cling film and leave it in a warm place to rise for 1 hour. I preheat the oven to 40°C and as soon as it reaches the temperature I turn it off and place the bowl in.

Add sugar pearls in the dough and mix by hand. Divide the dough into 14 pieces and leave them for 5' minutes while heating the waffle iron.

Place the pieces of dough in the hot waffle iron and bake until they are baked inside and caramelized on the outside.

Once they come out, leave them on a rack to cool.