Liege Waffles

A couple of time a year I have to go to San Francisco for work. Of course, I don’t relish being away from my family for a week but I would lie if I didn’t admit to a certain guilty pleasure to spend a week away from all familial responsibility and instead spend my mornings and evenings scavenging San Francisco’s best eateries. Yeah, I know… tough life.

It was during my first trip to San Francisco that I discovered these. I should mention that I don’t even like waffles. But the smell of these freshly baked beauties as I walked into Blue Bottle Coffee shop one morning was too much. I had to try them. They are crisp, light and airy with that sweet crunch of pearl sugar. Well, you can’t blame me replicating them at home as soon as I found their cookbook.

Now, in the shop these are served with a dousing of icing sugar but, as a good Canadian, I love mine with maple syrup. Hope you do too!

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200g Plain flour

1 Tbsp Sugar

1 ½ tsp instant yeast

5 Eggs

60ml Water, lukewarm

1 tsp Vanilla extract

115g Butter

½ tsp salt

4 Tbsp Pearl sugar

Get to work:

  1.  Melt the butter and let cool to about 115°F. 

  2. Sift the flour into a separate bowl and mix in the sugar and yeast 

  3. Whisk the eggs vigorously, until well blended. Add water and vanilla

  4. Add the egg mixture to the flour mixture, along with the salt and melted butter. Whisk until smooth.

  5. Cover the batter with plastic wrap and let rest until doubled in size, 1 hour, or refrigerate overnight

  6. Gently fold the pearl sugar into the dough and let rest for 15 minutes

  7. Preheat a Belgian-style waffle maker to medium-high heat

  8. Scoop the amount of batter suggested for your waffle maker into the waffle maker and cook until browned and crisp. I use a Stovetop Belgian Waffler from Nordicware it takes about a minute on the first side and 2 minutes on the other 

  9. Now drench in maple syrup

Laurence ReevesComment