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French Gaufres
Separate eight eggs, yolks from whites; beat the yolks till light, and froth the whites. Put eight ounces of flour and a quarter of a pound of pounded sugar, with a little salt, into a basin, and mix the beaten yolks of eggs, a glass of noyeau or any liquor preferred, and some pounded vanilla, with the flour; add a pint of whipped cream by slow degrees, and the whites of eggs lastly and lightly, that they may be well blended with the whole batter. Heat the gaufre-irons, and smear them with clarified butter, fill with the batter, and bake over a light charcoal fire; turn the irons that the gaufres may be evenly coloured; and when turned out, make them neat with a pair of scissors, and dry before the fire on paper. When dry, shake vanilla, orange, or lemon sugar over them, and serve piled high on a napkin. Probable cost, 2s. for this quantity.
A rich, souffléd wafer batter rather than a modern breakfast waffle: no leavening but eggs and whipped cream, and no liquid but liquor. Handle it gently and cook it fast.
- The hinge: fold, don't stirThe only lift comes from the whipped whites and cream. Fold the cream in slowly and the whites last with a light hand, and cook the batter promptly before it deflates.
- A glass of liquorA wine glass is conventionally reckoned at about 2 fl oz (¼ cup), though the recipe says only "a glass" and the book does not define it. Noyeau (noyau) is an almond-flavoured liqueur; amaretto, crème de noyaux or kirsch all stand in. Apart from the cream, it is the only liquid in the batter.
- Pounded sugarCaster sugar. A quarter of a pound is 4 oz, about ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons; the 8 oz of flour is a scant 2 cups. Weigh both if you can, since the batter's body depends on the ratio.
- Pounded vanillaA dried vanilla bean ground fine with a little of the sugar. Half a teaspoon of vanilla extract, or the scraped seeds of one pod, gives the same effect.
- The ironsGaufre-irons are long-handled hinged plates held over the fire, not a hinged baking dish. A stovetop waffle or pizzelle iron is the closest match; an electric iron works on a medium setting. Brush with clarified butter before every batch, as ordinary butter's milk solids will stick and scorch.
- Heat and time"A light charcoal fire" means moderate, not fierce: these are sugary and colour quickly. Reckon on 1½ to 3 minutes a side, turning once, and pull them when they are pale gold rather than brown.
- Drying and finishingTrimming the ragged edge with scissors while the wafer is still hot is what makes it look neat; it is much harder once cool. Drying on paper before the fire is a low, dry warmth -- the lowest setting of an oven with the door ajar is the nearest modern equivalent, and it is the drying that crisps them.
- YieldEight eggs and a pint of cream is a large quantity, giving roughly two dozen thin wafers depending on your iron. Halve the whole thing for a household batch.
- Flavoured sugarsOrange or lemon sugar is caster sugar rubbed with the zest and dried; vanilla sugar is sugar stored with a split pod. All three keep for months in a sealed jar.
Gaufre is simply the French for waffle, and the same French word also denotes a honeycomb — a reference to the patterned irons that have been used in northern France and the Low Countries since the medieval period, when wafer-making was a recognised trade with its own guilds. This version belongs among the sweet, cream-enriched batters rather than the plain flour-and-milk waffles of English and American cookery: no butter in the batter at all, no raising agent, and liqueur where a modern cook would put milk. Its appearance in a late-Victorian English dictionary of cookery reflects the period's steady borrowing from the French repertoire, and the note of a "probable cost, 2s." is characteristic of Cassell's, which costed dishes for readers running households on a fixed housekeeping allowance. The instruction to bake over charcoal is a reminder that hinged irons were held in the hand over an open fire long after closed ranges arrived.