Waffle-type Cookies

Food historians confirm crisp waffle-type cookies have ancient roots. These fancy holiday batter recipes were embraced by many cultures and cuisines: Italian pizzelles, Dutch wafres (waffles), French gaufrettes, Norwegian krumkake, etc. The primary difference between recipes is thickness of the batter and design of product.

Who made the first food of this type? We will probably never know. History does not typically record the "invention" of simple foods. We do know, however, that pizzelles and their fancy European cousins were very popular in the Middle Ages and played significant roles in the Christian calendar, most notably Lent. Some of these foods later evolved into street fare. Fancy shapes, different sizes, decorative patterns, and thickness variations are achieved by special cooking apparatus called wafer (waffle, gauffre) irons.

Krumkake. A Norwegian waffle cookie, traditionally made during the Christmas season. The Scandinavian version of a pizzelle.

Pizzelle. A thin, crispy, golden brown Italian cookie made from flour, eggs, sugar, butter and flavoring, such as vanilla, anise or lemon zest. It is cooked in a special pizzelle iron, similar to a waffle iron, that has a decorative pattern, typically a snowflake, which is impressed into the cookie. The cookie can be sprinkled with powdered sugar. Unsugared when it is still soft, it can be rolled up into a cone for ice cream or a tube for cannoli.

Stroopwafels. A sandwich cookie: two thin waffle wafers with a syrup or dulce de leche-type filling.

Waffle Cone. Sugar cones are made with brown sugar or molasses for a deeper flavor and are crunchier.