Liege Waffles

By CheeseDiva

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (120 ml) milk, whole is ideal
• 1/4 cup (60 ml) water
• 2 tablespoons raw sugar, brown sugar or honey
• 1 packet (7 grams or 2 1/2 teaspoons) active dry yeast
• 2 large eggs, ideally at room temperature
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 2/3 cups (460 grams) all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 teaspoon coarse or kosher salt
• 14 tablespoons (200 grams or 7 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/3 cups pearl sugar

Details

Servings 16
Adapted from smittenkitchen.com

Preparation

Step 1

Warm milk and water together to lukewarm, or between 110 and 116 degrees F, and place in the bottom of a large mixer bowl. Add sugar and yeast and stir to combine. Set aside for 5 minutes; the yeast should look foamy.

Whisk in eggs and vanilla, then stir in all but 1 cup flour (you can eyeball this) using a spoon or the dough hook of a stand mixer. Add the salt and mix to combine. Using the dough hook of a stand mixer, add the butter, a spoonful at a time, thoroughly kneading in each addition and scraping down the bowl as needed before adding the next until all of the butter has been mixed in. This is always my least favorite step in brioche because it feels like it takes forever to get that butter worked in, but it pays off in a stretchy, layered dough, promise. Add remaining flour and knead with dough hook on low speed for 5 minutes, or until glossy.

For room temperature first, cover bowl with plastic wrap and leave at room temperature for 2 hours; dough should double. Stir with a spoon or spatula to deflate into a mound, re-cover with plastic wrap and let chill in the fridge overnight, or up to 24 hours.

For fridge first, cover bowl with plastic warp and leave in the fridge overnight, or up to 24 hours. The dough will not look fully doubled when you take it out. The day you’d like the make the waffles, bring the dough back to room temperature for 60 minutes, stir to deflate, and let rise again for another 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

For both methods, on the day you’re ready to make the waffles, knead in the pearl sugar. It’s going to seem like way too much for the dough, but it will taste perfect once cooked. Divide dough into 16 mounds. If it’s rather warm and greasy, you can return these balls of dough to the fridge while you cook them off, one or a few at a time.

Heat your waffle iron — I use a deeper Belgian-style one here, which is ideal, but I’d expect these to work with all types — over medium heat. No need to oil or butter if it’s nonstick in good condition. Place first ball of waffle dough on grid and cook according to waffle maker’s instructions. Cook until deeply golden all over, which will take approximately 5 minutes, then carefully transfer with tongs or a fork to a cooling rack. Remember, they’re loaded with molten sugar; they’re very hot. Repeat with remaining balls of dough, adjusting temperature of waffle iron as needed to get the color you want. You’ll likely find that the waffles look more caramelized and glossy as you go on, as bits of melted sugar stay behind and gloss the next waffles; this is the best part.

Keep leftover waffles, should such a thing exist, in the freezer. If you’re making the full batch with the express intent of freezing them, you might want to cook them to half-a-shade lighter, so that when they’re reheated in a 200 degree oven, they won’t get too dark.

As you make more and more of these waffles, the melted sugar might pile deliciously up on your waffle iron. As I mentioned above, I’ve fallen in love with

a waffle maker with removable plates

in Finland, sucre en grains in France] Honestly, I would have shared a recipe for these years ago had so much of the waffle’s loveliness not hinged on an ingredient that — should you not be still working through the kilo bag you bought at G. Detou in Paris in 2008, heh — requires you to seek it out. But with a little looking, you’ll find it many places:

Make pearl sugar:

— a man with such an impassioned following that the day he linked to a recent recipe on this site, two different parents came up to me at kindergarten drop-off to ask if I really knew him — gave me a great tip this week: crush sugar cubes into coarse bits to create makeshift pearl sugar.