Prue's Stroopwafels
May 9, 2024
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Welcome to Katrina's Great British Baking Project, aka Bake Along with Bake Off! If you haven't checked out my post about the hows and whys of this project, please head over there and give it a quick peruse. (TL, DR: I am baking the recipes from Bake Off that sound the best to me for fun, deliciousness, and learning!)
This is my second bake from Caramel Week, check out the salted peanut butter millionare shortbreads I already made HERE!
Stroopwafels are a Dutch treat made of a yeasted waffle and filled with a cinnamon caramel (in Dutch, stroop means syrup and wafel means... waffle).
Rules of The Challenge
The Technical challenges provide the bakers with a *simplified* recipe so they must rely on their instinct and expertise to properly execute the bake. For this challenge, the contestants had 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete their 12 stroopwafels. The stroopwafels consisted of:
- thin yeasted waffle
- cinnamon caramel
Words of Wisdom from Prue Leith
The Technical bakes are all recipes created by the judges, and they alternate between Prue and Paul each episode. Prue warned of two potential pitfalls:
- If the wafel is too thin, it will become brittle and break.
- If the caramel is not cooked long enough, it will be grainy rather than the preferred stretchy texture.
Research and Recipe Choice
While the bakers on the show have a pared-down version of the recipe, I will be using full, actual recipe. I found the full version of Prue's actual recipe from the show's official website. I bought two special things for the recipe:
First, a small waffle iron for making pizelles (a thin Italian cookie) because all the stroopwafel specific irons were way too expensive to maybe only use once. The pizelle maker has a distinctly different pattern than a traditional stroopwafel, but I decided it was okay for the purposes of this project!
The second thing I purchased was a bottle of golden syrup, which is a British cane sugar syrup. Based on my research, Dutch stroop (syrup) is made from cane sugar or beets, so I think the British golden syrup is a decent stand in!
Making This Bake
The dough was super straightforward, just a mix of flour, butter, yeast, warm water, egg, sugar, cinnamon, and salt. Once that was mixed properly, I let it rise for 30 minutes.
While the dough rested, I melted more butter and light brown sugar on the stove. After it was melted, in went the golden syrup, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and a pinch of salt that Prue didn't call for but I just had to add. Caramel always needs salt!
Once the caramel was done, I began cooking the waffles. The recipe stated to place a ball of dough on the iron and press it flat, but my tiny iron had not the strength for such tasks and therefore my first waffle was a major fail. However, if I flattened the dough ahead of time and rotated them 90º near the end of cooking time, I was able to find a modicum of success!
Once the waffles were cooked, I punched out a perfect circle using a ring mold, carefully sliced them in half and opened them like a book. A dollop of caramel in the center and then the covers went on and the stroopwafels were done.
The Official Rating
Paul’s handshakes are only bestowed upon the bakers when they have baked something really exceptional.
My rating for how likely I am to bake this recipe again is: 10/10 handshakes
🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼
These were very, very tasty and pretty low effort for a big payoff!
My rating for my execution of this bake is: 7/10 handshakes
🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼🤝🏼
My caramel was definitely grainy and a few of the waffles were somewhat uneven. But they tasted wonderful so I didn't care!
To Sum Up
This was a very fun project! My caramel wasn't texturally perfect, but it still tasted amazing. My waffles had a great flavor and texture even though the pizelle maker really wasn't the best tool for the job. These are a great way to bake without turning on the oven, which I think makes it a nice project for summer. I will definitely be making these again!
Head to the links below for the most recent bakes!
Stay tuned for more bakes! I hope you have a beautiful rest of your day and thank you so much for being here!
💖, Katrina
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