Norwegian Waffles (Vaffler)
In a village an hour outside of Oslo is a snow-covered, two story home with large windows and a long kitchen with lots of cupboard doors. Taped to the inside of one of those many cupboard doors is a yellowed piece of paper that has been there for nearly 20 years. On this piece of paper an 8 year old boy scribbled out his favorite recipe (oppskrift). As you have no doubt by now guessed, that recipe was for Norwegian waffles (vaffler), and the little boy is now my fiancé.
Makes: 8 waffles
Preparation time:
Cooking time:
Total Time:
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 1/2 cup milk
- 3 large organic eggs
- 1 stick melted butter
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla sugar (This is vanilla flavored powdered sugar. You can make it by splitting a vanilla bean and placing it inside a container of powdered sugar for about 2 weeks, or you can usually find it at Ikea)
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
- 2 cups flour
Equipment: waffle iron (a Norwegian heart shaped waffle iron works best, but use a regular American waffle iron if that’s all you have. Do not use a Belgian waffle iron, the pockets are much too deep for these waffles.)
Instructions:
- Whisk together sugar, milk and eggs.
- Add the melted butter.
- In a separate bowl mix together the baking powder, vanilla sugar, cardamom and flour.
- Stir the dry mixture into the wet mixture.
- Whisk it until smooth and lump-free batter. Let it stand and swell for 15 minutes.
- Heat waffle iron and pour 1/3 cup batter onto waffle iron. Wait for iron to beep, them remove waffle when completely cooked. Repeat until you have used up all the batter.
- Top with American toppings such as blueberries and maple syrup or try some traditional Norwegian toppings...just not all at once: brown caramelized goat cheese (called Gjetost, can be found at Whole Foods Market), sour cream, strawberry jam, fresh strawberries, butter and sugar, cinnamon sugar, or ice cream.
Original Recipe
My favorite part is the 150kg of butter...I bet those were delish!
Culture: Norwegian
Written by Anne Beaubien
Thank you for sharing your family's recipe
I use a stovetop iron and got great results (1 1/2 - 2 min per side). Nice crisp right out of iron, still soft on fork and full of flavor (didn't have vanilla sugar so i subed 1/2 tsp vanilla extract and added 1/4 tsp cinnamon).
This is now my go to waffle recipe!
This vaffler recipe has been in the family since the early 1900s, so it is indeed a traditional Norwegian recipe. It will taste very similar to the ones you had while visiting there. However most places use a ready made dry mix so it will probably be slightly different. This recipe does make soft waffles. They come out a little crispy but just stack them to cool and they soften up quickly. If you don't have a Norwegian vaffeljern you can use a shallow waffle iron. If you use a deep waffle iron you will end up with belgian style waffles that might be a bit crispier than you want.