Episode notes
The stroopwafel began as a way to sell waste. In Gouda, bakers took crumbs and trimmings, sweetened them with the cheapest syrup available, and pressed them into waffles. The name most tied to it is Gerard Kamphuisen, who opened a bakery in Gouda in 1810, and the oldest known written recipe dates to 1840. The method is exacting: a dense yeast dough with butter, brown sugar, milk, and eggs is pressed in a hot cast iron iron, cut into a circle, and sliced horizontally while still hot, before the starches stiffen, then glued back together with syrup that sets tacky rather than glassy.
By 1870 the waffle had spread to other Dutch cities, and by 1960 Gouda had 17 stroopwafel factories, of which four survive. Machines replaced the hand slice with timed conveyor belts and thin blades, and sizes split from the classic 10 centimeters into 5 centimeter coins for hotels and 25 centimeter novelty giants. The waffle iron's history runs far older: the 1393 French household manual Le Menagier de Paris gives a recipe for thin wafers filled with cheese, and Lille's patisserie Maison Meert popularized a stuffed waffle of Madagascar vanilla and cassonade sugar in 1849.
- Dutch market vendors still sell the trimmed edges in paper bags as a separate snack.
- The Great British Bake Off made the stroopwafel a technical challenge in 2017.
- United Airlines served them as a complimentary breakfast snack.
- In Australia they are called coffee toppers, since resting one on a hot mug softens the syrup within two to three minutes.
- Variations include honey filled waffles, syrup-bound cookies, and bags of manufacturing crumbs.