Belgian Liege Waffle

比利时列日松饼

Takes about 3 hours to make this type of waffle but totally worth the effort. They are made with yeasted dough (instead of batter), lots of butter and mixed with pearl sugar to give you waffles that are crispy on the outside and soft and chewy inside. 

Ingredients:

Warm milk          100ml

Instant yeast        5g (aprox 1 teaspoon)

Honey                   10g

Salt                        1/2 teaspoon

Brown sugar       10g

Unsalted butter  100g (room temperature)

Bread flour          250g

Vanilla extract    1/2 teaspoon

Egg                        1 (approximately 55g - if egg is large, reduce milk)

Pearl sugar          50g (reduce if you prefer less sweet waffle)

1 spoonful of love 

Method:

1. Warm milk to 30 degrees celcius.

2. Add egg, honey, brown sugar and vanilla extract to the milk and whisk to combine.

3. In the mixing bowl with bread flour, add in yeast and salt. Make sure yeast and salt are placed in different sides of the bowl as salt will inhibit the growth/reproduction of yeast in dough.

4. Add in the milk mixture from step 2 and use a scrapper or spatula to mix in until a crumbly dough is formed. Then, transfer the dough to the tabletop and knead the dough until dough is smooth. This takes about 10minutes. Note: This dough is very wet, you may want to use a stand mixer if you have one. 

5. Spread the dough out and add butter to dough. Knead the dough until it is smooth and supple (as soft as your ear lope). 

6. Shape the dough into a ball, put in the mixing bowl (lightly greased with olive oil), cover it with plastic wrap and let it rest at room temperature until dough doubles in size. This takes about 1 hour depending on weather and room temperature.

7. Remove dough from mixing bowl and use your hands to press and spread it. Add pearl sugar to the dough and knead/fold gently.

8. Divide the dough into small pieces and shape each piece into a ball. This recipe makes 12 balls of about 50g each. Cover the balls of dough with a plastic wrap and proof for 20minutes.

9. Heat up the waffle maker, lightly oil the waffle maker and place the dough balls on the waffle grid. 

10. Cook according to waffle maker's instructions. I use Wards cast iron waffle maker and it takes 3.5minutes to cook the waffles on each side. Each waffle weights about 43g.

11. Serve the waffles hot. They taste the best then! The un-finished waffles can be frozen, and they taste just as good once you heat them up in the toaster (about 3 mins).