Stroopwafel

A soft syrup is sandwiched between thin, grid-patterned wafers, and the stroopwafel is set on top of a cup holding a hot drink so that it softens slightly. Associated with Gouda, the stroopwafel is a Dutch sweet with a different texture outside and inside. stroop means syrup, and wafel means waffle. The wafers that hold the syrup are made in one of two ways: a single wafer is sliced horizontally in half while still hot, or two wafers are baked separately. Current manufacturers’ explanations and historical sources use different names for these methods.

Slicing the wafer horizontally in half before it cools

A well-known method is to bake the dough thin on an iron, split the still-warm wafer horizontally, spread syrup on it and put the halves back together. The sweet liquid is not poured over the top; it is sandwiched between the two surfaces.

Wafers that are split horizontally also vary: some use yeast, some use a leavening agent, and some use neither. In one example of a yeasted method, yeast is dissolved in lukewarm milk, then combined with butter, sugar, eggs and flour and kneaded. The dough rises for about an hour, is shaped into balls and rested again briefly, and is then pressed in a thin waffle iron. Instead of ladling and pouring a liquid batter, small balls of dough are pressed flat and baked.

In Amsterdam, Egstorf prepares its dough every morning, weighs out each piece and rolls it by hand, then bakes it on an iron at about 185°C. While the dough, cut into a circle, is still warm and pliable, it is split horizontally in half with a small blade and spread with warm caramel. Because this is done before the wafer cools and hardens, a single thin wafer can be divided in two.

The grid pattern pressed by the iron browns, and splitting the thinly baked wafer horizontally creates surfaces to hold the filling. The syrup is not worked into the whole dough but remains between the wafers as a separate, soft layer, so the outer crust and the filling have different textures. Both grid-patterned faces point outward, and the syrup is sandwiched between the flat cut surfaces.

A home method: baking two wafers separately and joining them

King Arthur’s home recipe (ingredient proportions and method), on the other hand, uses eggs, brown sugar, flour, a leavening agent, cinnamon and melted butter, bakes thin wafers separately on a pizzelle iron and joins two of them together. The filling in this recipe is water, brown sugar, butter and either golden syrup or corn syrup, cooked down. To keep it soft, it is cooked to the soft-ball stage, about 112–116°C, and cooled slightly before spreading.

The Gouda origin story and a manufacturing industry that spread to other places

Dutch tourism information gives a backstory in which leftover dough was combined with syrup in Gouda around 1810. Duizend jaar Gouda (A Thousand Years of Gouda), a study of Gouda’s history, notes that there are several candidates but regards Gerard Kamphuisen, who opened a shop in 1810, as the likely maker. The year he opened his shop is known, but it is not clear when he began making waffles.

A local trade directory cited in the same book records about 17 waffle factories around 1960. The town’s specialty did not remain one baker’s secret; it also became an industry tied to syrup production and multiple workshops. Today, Gouda still has workshops where visitors can watch the baking process.

Makers also grew up outside Gouda. Daelmans began as a small family bakery that Hermanus Daelmans opened in Vlijmen in 1904. It has since grown into a brand that also sells abroad, and the pleasure of eating freshly baked wafers at a workshop now sits alongside products in bags and boxes that are carried far away.

Commercial formulations are not uniform either. Daelmans’ regular products do not contain egg, while its gluten-free products, made in a separate factory, use egg. The company uses a corn-derived sugar syrup, which differs from the egg-containing dough and syrup choices in home recipes.

Names for the split-wafer method and the two-wafer method

Daelmans distinguishes between the stroopwafel, in which a single baked wafer is split and filled, and the siroopwafel, in which two thin wafers are baked individually and filled. According to the company, the filling of the latter is a thinner syrup. Duizend jaar Gouda, on the other hand, calls today’s method of splitting a single warm wafer the spouwwafel, and describes the old Gouda style as spreading syrup on two wafers that were baked separately and cooled. A manufacturer classifying current products and a historian tracing changes in the town’s methods use different names, even for the same way of baking.

The history book also explains that mixing trimmings from the baked edges into the dough gives a crisper bite. In this method, the edges of the dough that come off during baking are used as an ingredient in the next batch of dough.

The home method of baking two wafers separately skips the difficult step of cutting before the wafer cools. In exchange, the result differs in thinness from a single baked wafer split in two. It is a recipe for the same syrup-filled sweet, adapted to the iron that is available.

The recollections of a baker who obtained an 1854 recipe

Joop de Korte is a baker who spent 45 years making and selling sweets in Gouda. He sold his wares around town as a young man and later ran a factory, and he said that he obtained an 1854 siroopwafel recipe from the papers of the Van Vreumingen family. Clues to the history of the town’s confectionery are found not only in shop records but also in documents kept by families.

He recalls selling from stacked tins of sweets and running the Adeko waffle factory from 1946 to 1990. He names Punselie and Adeko as separate products alongside Gouda siroopwafels, which shows that more than one way of baking survived, even in the same town. The history of the town’s workshops is built from layers of old recipes, bakers’ experience and the products of different companies.

A sweet filled with anko butter in Saga

In Japan, stroopwafels are also made with the filling replaced by anko butter (sweet bean paste with butter). Tsuruya in Saga learned the method from Lanskroon, a bakery in Amsterdam, and launched this sweet in September 2018. Tsuruya keeps the way of eating it by softening the filling over a hot drink, and alongside it also sells kamairi-cha (pan-fired tea) made in collaboration with a Saga tea brand. It is an example of the form of a soft filling between thin baked wafers being combined with Japanese anko and tea.

Store away from high temperatures and warm before eating

Store stroopwafels sealed in a dry, dark place, away from high temperatures that make the syrup run. Just before eating, on the other hand, placing one on top of a cup holding a hot drink warms the thin outer wafers and the sugar syrup inside, so the syrup becomes soft.

The Belgian waffle, whose dough is baked thick, is a different style enjoyed for the air pockets inside. Even with the same grid pattern, a structure in which the dough is divided and filled and a structure in which toppings are added to a single thick waffle differ both in method and in the texture of each bite.

Glossary