Swedish waffles, recipe

Swedish waffle with strawberry jam and vanilla ice cream

Here is a recipe for Swedish waffles that I have found to produce waffles that taste similarly to the waffles you get by using "waffle mix" (which gives you the best waffles, better than what you can make yourself from raw ingredients; the people that do the research at those companies know what they are doing). You also need a Swedish style waffle iron, since Swedish waffles are very thin compared to Japanese, American, or Belgian waffles. Trying to make Swedish waffles in a Japanese (which is similar to American) waffle iron will not work since the Swedish waffles will not rise and thus only be baked from below and will not turn into waffles.

A waffle and my waffle iron

Anyway, these are the ingredients:

* butter, 67 gram
* flour, 200 ml
* cream, 50 ml (and for Japanese readers, cream means something that comes from a cow, not that vegetable based stuff that is called cream in Japan, though I imagine that can also be used)
* milk, 50 ml (if the waffles become too dry, reduce milk and add cream)
* 1 egg
* baking powder, 0.5 teaspoon (2.5 ml)
* salt, as much as you think tastes best, but probably no more than the baking powder above (less would be fine, though)
* oil, add oil if the waffles are not crispy enough or if they stick to the waffle iron (you could also add oil into the waffle iron to fix the latter problem)
* water, 100 ml. Add more water if the waffle batter is not fluid enough for your taste (should be less runny than pancake batter, though)

Basically you mix everything in a bowl, and mix the batter thoroughly. Mix all the dry ingredients first. The butter should be melted before mixing with the rest.

Butter can be replaces with oil, but the taste will turn slightly worse I think. You can reduce the amount of milk and increase the amount of cream instead if you think the waffles are too dry. You can increase the amount of water if you don't think the batter is runny enough. You can add oil to make the waffles crispier, and make them less likely to stick to the iron. Most modern waffle irons are Teflon coated, which is great. My waffle iron is iron, so it rusts and stuff stick to it like crazy (on the upside, you can use it with an electric stove, a gas burner, and induction heating stove, a camp fire, or whatever you may have available).

Waffles are usually served as a dessert type of food, so usually they are served with whipped cream and jam. In traditional Swedish places they often give you "cloudberry" jam. The second most common would be raspberry jam (we have enormous amounts of raspberries in the woods in Sweden). Blueberry and strawberry are common too. Using ice cream instead of whipped cream is not uncommon.

Waffles can also be served as food rather than sweets. Ingredients-wise, waffles are kind of bread (my recipe above contains eggs, so maybe closer to cakes than bread, but many waffle recipes are without eggs; the really basic ones are just wheat flour and cream). So anything that goes with bread is fine. Ham and cheese is good, for instance. You can also mix herbs or cheese into the batter.