Belgium “Belgian Waffles” are better than American “Belgian Waffles”!

In America when you hear the words “Belgium Waffles” we think of breakfast, but I learned what a real Belgium Waffles was when I visited Bruges (or Brugge), Belgium this summer. There it means dessert! It is the most wonderful dessert. So delicious that we had one everyday that we were there! You could pick various toppings, but maple syrup wasn’t even a choice, thank goodness.

Once we got home, I started craving the Belgium waffles that we had had on our trip so I began to scour the internet for a recipe that was close to it and I finally found it. I tested it on the family one night for dessert and they all loved them. I had 3 topping available, powdered sugar, strawberries and whipped cream, and the last was a creamy topping like peanut butter but made of crushed up biscoff cookies. I can’t remember what it is called, but it was delicious!

I want to share the recipe with you and I hope you all try it for a new dessert some time. Here it is:

Belgian Waffle Recipe
For a Basic Belgian Waffle recipe we will need:
3 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon instant dried yeast
4 medium eggs
whole milk
two sticks butter
vanilla sugar
some salt

1. Take a cup of milk and heat it until it is lukewarm then mix in your yeast. You can now leave the yeast standing for a while.
2. In the mean time – melt the butter, but stop as soon as it melts, don’t over heat it or even burn it – you will lose the taste. You also need to...
3. ...separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and beat the egg whites until you get snow.
4. Now take a big giant huge bowl and throw in all the flour, vanilla sugar (one tablespoon) and some salt. Make a hole in the middle of the flour and fill it with melted butter, dissolved yeast and egg yolk.
5. Mix while you are adding milk. You should mix it really well so there are no lumps. The question you might ask here is how dense should the dough be, how much milk? It should be thick, think pancakes and then make it a bit thicker.
6. OK, now gently mix the beaten egg whites into the dough…and…STOP! Enough mixing :).
7. Leave the dough to rest and rise at room temperature for a while until the volume of the dough doubles or even triples! If you are in a hurry then wait for 30 minutes to one hour, but if you can, make the waffle dough in the evening and leave it overnight.
8. Use the oil to grease the waffle iron (which should be hot hot hot) so your waffles don't stick to it and pour the dough in it. Bake them until they turn golden brown.
9. Eat!
***As I mentioned above, we tried it at home with the 3 toppings mentioned. I hope you like it!

I found these instructions for making vanilla sugar also:

Vanilla sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, whole or scraped
• 2 cups granulated sugar
Directions
If vanilla bean is whole, slice down side of bean with back of knife and scrape seeds into airtight container with the sugar. Bury bean in sugar and seal tightly with lid. Let sit for 1 to 2 weeks. Use as regular, granulated sugar.

To make vanilla sugar with vanilla extract:

o INGREDIENTS

1 teaspoon vanilla extract ( to make it yourself see homemade vanilla extract)
1 cup of granulated sugar (any kind : white sugar or sugarcane)
o DIRECTION
Mix the vanilla extract with the sugar, that's it!