A European Style Waffle. (this Stuff Is Lush)

During your long and often exiting holidays you often come across a hidden wonder, maybe a perfect souvenir or a free buck or so. Sometimes it may be more interesting like a sports hero or bill gates or if your sad it could be some nice food. Yep that was what i got from my trip to France this winter while i was skiing. I know what i say sounds boring but it was a delicious tastes it had caramel and goey inners with a crisp top. I was tottaly drawn to recreating it. I have been needlessly through books and the internet to finnaly find this particular recipe. Not a single one had it. That was it i had to find it myself, i was a half acomplished cook and had a reasonable guess at the recipe each time making new parts and adding ingredients. (some of which were harder to find than others) but i cracked it. It was the glory a hacker gets from breacking a code, pure bliss. So here i am now putting europes waffle against americas.

(By the way this took about 20 recorded attempts to get it right so your in for a treat, a sweet treat.)

Sorry for all the WAFFLE (lol) the pics took a while to load.

Step 1: The Ingredients

For around 15 Waffles (mine made 16) you will need:

-500 grams of plain flour.
-1 Teaspoon or sachet of yeast.
-A mixture of 125ml of water and milk.
-50 grams of sugar. (for the dough)
-1 Large Egg.
-120 grams of Marge.
-25 grams of honey (equivelent to about a tablespoon)
-50 grams Ground Almonds
-1 Teaspoon of vannilla essence.
-1 Teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda.

For the Beaded or pearl sugar you will need:

-300 grams sugar
-3 Tablespoons of water.

Step 2: Begin the Dough.

To begin with only weigh out 400g of plain flour and seive this in to the bowl. Now add the Yeast and all 50 g of sugar. Take your egg and splait both the white and yolk in to the mixture as well as the water and milk substance. I would suggest using a dough hook to mix the mixture as it has greatests results. The mixture should become a dough like in picture... Take the dough and cover the bowl in cling film before letting the dough rise. The time to rise is dependant on conditions min took around ar hour to rise.

Hopefully the pictures help to explain a bit more.

Step 3: The Second Part of the Dough

Now that you dough has risen it is time for you to add more of the ingredients. Start off by adding the marge and ground almonds with the 100 g of flour left. Now stir in the new parts with the dough hook. Now you can add the honey, bicarbonate of soda and salt. Mix these ingredients in to. Finnaly add the vannillas essence to the dough and let the dough mix together. Now take the dough and knead it for around 10 mins. You may need to put some flour down to prevend it from sticking. After you have finished kneading leave the dough to rise for a second time. From the pictures below you can see the diffenence in size between as i left it to rise and once it had risen.

Step 4: Beaded or Pearl Sugar.

To make the pearl sugar put 300 grams of sugar in to a pot and turn the heat on, add around 2 tablespoons of water and stir the mixture so it crysterlises. The sugar should stick together in lumps, however if you get a smooth mixture turning to caramel add a little more water and try again. The pieces should be moderatly sized with a few smaller and bigger bits like below. The sugar should be slightly tainted golden but not fully caramelised.

Step 5: Making the Balls to Make the Waffles.

Firstly take you dough which you should of let rise and take it out of its bowl and put it on a surface. Flatten slightly with your hands and cover it in beaded sugar.then fold over and make sure the sugar is mixed in. Make sure you don't used quite all of your sugar. Once most of the sugar is within the dough cut the dough in to around 16 pieces bearing in mind that the parts will rise and therefore become bigger. take the parts and roll them in beaded sugar and put the on a tray ready to rise. Now repeat with all the balls. And put them out to rise for the last time.

Step 6: Cooking.

Now your balls have risen you could either freeze them ready for another time such as the next morning or you could cook and eat them. For cooking allow your waffle iron to heat up to full temperature then place however many balls you can fit in in. Spread the balls out and leave them to cook for around 3-4 mins. They are better less cooked than more cooked in my opinion. For serving you can have souces but i prefer to have them alone with no sides. They are best warm and will probably not taste a good cold. You can cook the night before and eat in the morning however they don't taste as good then in my opinion.