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French Waffles
Put nine ounces of flour in a basin with one teacupful of sugar, one tablespoonful of vanilla sugar, one wineglassful of noyeau, and the yolks of eight or nine eggs; when well mixed stir in an equal number of whites of eggs and one pint of cream. Cook the waffles as directed for flemish waffles.
A rich dessert waffle batter — closer to a cream-and-egg-yolk gaufre than a breakfast waffle — that leans on the preceding "flemish waffles" entry for its cooking method. A few of its measures need translating before you start.
- The weights and vesselsNine ounces of flour is about 2 cups scooped and levelled; weigh it if you can, since this batter has no leavening to forgive a heavy hand. A teacupful of sugar in this period is somewhere between 1/2 and 3/4 cup, a wineglassful about 2 fl oz, and a "basin" is simply a mixing bowl.
- NoyeauModern spelling is noyau (crème de noyaux), an almond-flavoured cordial historically made by steeping peach or apricot kernels in spirit. Buy it bottled; do not attempt a home infusion from stone fruit kernels, which carry cyanogenic compounds. Amaretto is a reasonable stand-in for the flavour.
- Vanilla sugarGranulated sugar stored with a split vanilla pod. A tablespoon of it can be replaced by a tablespoon of sugar plus about a teaspoon of vanilla extract.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe instruction to "stir in" the whites is loose, and the original does not say to beat them. If you want any lift at all, beat the eight or nine whites to soft peaks and fold them in with the cream at the end; there is no other leavening in the batter.
- ConsistencyA pint of cream against nine ounces of flour makes a batter far thinner than modern waffle batter. That is correct for this style, but it means a fuller-than-usual pour will run; use less batter per iron than you would expect.
- Cooking the wafflesThe original sends you to its Flemish waffle entry for the method, which is not reproduced here. In an electric iron, work at a medium setting: the sugar and cream brown much faster than a plain batter, and these scorch before the centre sets if the iron is too hot. Grease well — the high egg content sticks.
- Yield and servingEnough for roughly 12 to 16 waffles depending on your iron. Serve as a dessert or teatime waffle, dusted with powdered sugar, with stewed fruit or whipped cream rather than syrup and bacon.
Oscar Tschirky's book groups waffles by nationality, with entries cross-referenced to one another rather than repeated in full — this one points back to the Flemish version for its method. The French entry is the dessert end of that range: sugar, cream, a great many yolks and a glass of cordial. Noyau, the almond-scented liqueur called for here, turns up throughout period confectionery and ice-cream work; its name is simply the French for the stone or kernel of a fruit, a reminder that the flavour originally came from crushed peach and apricot pits rather than almonds. Waffle irons of the period were hinged plates heated over coals or on a range top, which is why the instructions say nothing about temperature.