Hi Kate,

I have a friend who have a grand-mother with a hold cooking book. And she promises me to give me the ingredient of the waffle baking.

Wait a few days and I will give it..............................

First, a nice story.
In a way, you could say that there are no"Belgian" waffles, but there is rather a whole bunch of varieties.

In former years, it used to be the major delicacy (together with pancakes) at family reunions and on special occasions, such as Mardi Gras ( translated as"Pancake Day" ) or Christmas Evening (where it has been replaced by turkey as we got Civilized in recent years).
At home, waffle irons are not really big-sized and make rectangular waffles of 4 by 6 (or 7) squares.
Every family tends to have its own variation on a basic recipe.
In general, snack bars and waffle houses serve Brussels waffles, with a very light structure and baked in slightly bigger irons with coarse squares.
THe 'sugar' waffles are much sweeter; they are smaller again and no yeast is used for the dough (they are usually called "waffles from Liege").

The best waffles are obtained by using yeast for the dough. You can also use self-raising flour or baking powder, but the result is not as tasty.
Alas, waffles with yeast cannot be stored for longer than one or two days.
You should eat them during the baking or as soon as possible afterwards (warm them up in the iron which was used for the baking).

Most recipes use melted butter. Butter should not be heated to much, that is why I mentioned the "bain-marie" method. It should certainly not boil! A microwave is more convenient and has less tendency to spoil the taste of freshly melted dairy butter.

Grease waffle irons with some oil or melted butter before you begin to bake. If waffles get to stick to the iron after some baking, re-grease the iron.
A piece of (unsalted) bacon is even better, if you can mange to find some.



The recipe

Waffles leavened with 'pearl sugar' (a kind of big grained sugar)
_____________________________

Warm (only luke-warm) 200ml milk. Whisk the baker yeast (30gr), 2 whole eggs, 100g coarse-grained sugar and 200g flour into the milk.
Stir the dough vigorously for 5 minutes, cover the container and leave the dough to rise at proximity of a source of heat.

When his volume has doubled add 300g butter and an half teaspoon of salt. (If you prefer melted butter you have to wait until it's luke-warm before you add it.)

Mix the remaining 300g flour with the dough (one can also add a little pack of vanillated sugar)

Cover the container again and let the dough rise for another 20 minutes meanwhile you have to weigh 250g "pearl" sugar.

After the 20minutes, mix the pearl sugar with the dough and let the dough rise again for another 15minutes.

Heat the waffle iron (use one with big holes) and grease it .

Pour the dough unto the waffle iron.

"ENJOY"

Formidable! Merci Carine, tu es tres gentile

Stay tuned for Part 2: where Kate found the Melbourne waffle bar yesterday...



Kate

Et oui, et le patron est de Montpellier, ma ville de naissance!!!
Je n'ai pas goute les gauffres comme Kate qui a fait la rasia mais le cafe est super bon!!!! et Marc est super sympa.
On y retournera c' sur, Degraves St. pres de Flinders Station pr ceux qui ne connaissent pas encore. Par contre, il ferme le samedi car deception aujourd'hui qd j'ai voulu aller tester les supers gauffres fraiches avec vrai sucre de betterave en provenance directe de ton pays, Carine, si si!!
Bon w-end a tous
Domi

My first of many visits to the Waffle stand...

The guy behind the counter, as Domi said, is from her home town, the guy behind the cart is either French or maybe Belgian, and even the kid at the counter buying a waffle turned out to be French!
Cool, Frenchie invasion!

I'll put one of the francedownunder stickers which Ozman gave me on his noticeboard along with the owner's photos and political jokes next time I'm there.

I'm sure they'd love to see even more Frenchies ...and we might even attract some new FDU members from his current clientele



And here's the end of the Degraves Alley with Flinders St station in the background..
It's well worth finding your way here. I assure you, the waffles were every bit as good as I remembered from being in Belgium 4 years ago...and been dreaming about ever since



Kate

SUPERS PHOTOS KATE!!
La prochaine fois, je te prendrai en photo avec le patron, une gauffre sinon 2 (une dans chaque main quoi a la main !!!
A bientot
Domi

Kate, heureuse apres avoir mange un tres bon gaufre.


Marc was also kind enough to let us leave our 'calling card' and found a good place to display it.....maybe the next 'batch' (hehe) of Melbourne FDU Members to sign up will be waffle addicts originating from this location

Elle avait mange les gauffres donc voila elle est heureuse! C' est vrai qu'elles sont franchement bonnes les gauffres de Marc....
Bisous Kate !!
Domi

And I saved the best pic from last week's Melbourne excursion till last, Domi.



Domi et Kate, apres les Gaufres.

And while I was in the city, we also caught up with Tania et 2 de ses enfants dans les Flagstaff Gardens, a cote du Vic Market.


Tania et Domi

Thankx Kate, now we're famous Tania, you, Marc and I!!!!!
Yes after the Gauffres, we were all happy and nicely full
See you tomorrow girl!!
Domi