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Hotel Waffles
3 pounds of flour. 3 pints of milk or water. 1 pint of yeast. 5 ounces of sugar or syrup. 8 ounces of melted lard or butter. 1 tablespoonful of salt. 10 or 12 eggs.
If for supper make up a sponge at noon, plain, with flour, water and yeast. At 4 o'clock add the enriching ingredients, beat up well.and let rise again till 6, then bake in waffle irons.
A commercial-scale yeast-raised waffle batter, written for a hotel kitchen turning out dozens at a sitting. The quantities scale down cleanly by thirds or quarters.
- The pint of yeastThis is liquid yeast — barm or a brewer's-yeast slurry, not a dry granulated product. Substitute about 2 teaspoons of instant or active dry yeast and add an extra 2 cups of water or milk to the sponge to make up the pint of liquid the barm supplied.
- Weights to volumes3 pounds of flour is roughly 11 cups; 3 pints is 6 cups; 5 ounces of sugar is about 3/4 cup; 8 ounces of lard or butter is 2 sticks. A tablespoon of salt for 3 pounds of flour is right, not a misprint.
- Quarter the batchAs written this yields something on the order of three dozen waffles. A quarter batch — 12 oz flour, 1 1/2 cups liquid, 1/2 teaspoon instant yeast, 1 1/4 oz sugar, 4 tablespoons butter, 3/4 teaspoon salt, 3 eggs — fits a home mixing bowl.
- The two-stage rise is the pointThe sponge of flour, water and yeast alone ferments unhindered for four hours; fat, sugar and eggs all slow yeast down, which is why they go in at the end. Skipping the plain sponge gives a flat, bready waffle instead of the tangy open crumb this method produces.
- The clock is a guide, not a ruleNoon to four to six assumes a warm hotel kitchen. In a cool modern house the sponge may want longer; judge by a domed, bubbled, faintly sour mass rather than the hour. The second rise wants only to see the batter puffed and slack.
- EggsEggs of the period may have run somewhat smaller than today's large. Ten large eggs will serve for the full batch. The recipe does not separate them, and it does not need to: the yeast does the lifting.
- ConsistencyThe batter should pour, not drop — thinner than a baking-powder batter. If it is stiff after the enriching stage, thin it with milk before the final rise.
- The ironsHotel waffle irons were cast iron heated on the range and turned by hand. In an electric iron, preheat fully and grease the first round even on a nonstick surface; watch the first waffle to set your timing.
The American Pastry Cook belongs to a family of late nineteenth-century trade manuals written for men cooking in hotels, restaurants and steamships, which is why the yields run to pounds of flour and dozens of eggs rather than cups. The "hotel" in the title is a scale, not a style. Yeast-raised waffles are the older form: waffle irons long predate chemical leavening, and a batter like this one — sponged in the morning, enriched in the afternoon, baked at supper — remained a common way of making waffles through much of the century, alongside batters lifted by beaten eggs and, increasingly, by soda and baking powder. The all-day schedule suits a kitchen already staffed and warm at noon, with barm or brewer's yeast on hand from the bakeshop.