Homemade Liege waffles. Liege waffles Belgian waffles with pearl sugar
Liege waffles are the oldest known Belgian waffles. They were invented already in the eighteenth century. The recipe for Liege waffles has the following two features: real Belgian Liege waffles are made from yeast dough with pieces of sugar, the so-called “sugar pearls,” mixed in there just before baking. Now they are produced specially, these are very large sugar granules of irregular shape. Its use allows you to achieve a very interesting effect - Liege waffles are coated with a shell of caramel! In this regard, they are truly absolutely unique, and worth a try. However, we won’t go to Belgium to get them; we’ll make them at home. It's real. I won’t say it’s easy, but it’s really possible.
Knead the yeast in warm water, mix with a couple of spoons of flour and let a foam form.
Those who use vanilla cut the pod and extract the seeds. I try to make Liege waffles with ingredients that existed in the eighteenth century. Nowadays vanillin and vanilla extract are used more, but this makes the taste less subtle.
Knead the dough from the rest of the flour, foamed yeast starter, two eggs, vanilla, honey and sugar. The dough should form into a lump and stick well to the walls of the dish.
Melt the butter (4 minutes in the microwave on defrost mode).
Let the dough rest under the film for 1 hour.
Mix the butter into the dough in small portions until completely dissolved.
Let the dough rise under the film for at least 4 hours, or better yet, overnight.
Immediately before starting to bake the waffles, when the waffle iron is already warming up, mix granulated sugar into the dough.
Form 4 balls from the dough.
Bake waffles in a waffle iron at medium or high power with strong pressure at the very beginning. The time depends on the waffle iron (mine is about 3 minutes), but Liege waffles, in any case, should not be light, but brown. This is the caramel that stands out from the "sugar pearls". That shine that you see on the waffle is not fat, as one might assume, but it is also crispy! By the way, immediately after baking, be sure to fill the waffle iron with water while it’s hot, otherwise it will be difficult to clean later.
Liege waffles are my family's favorite waffles!
Step 1: infuse the yeast.
Preparing this delicious dessert is not difficult! First of all, pour the required amount of pure distilled water into a small saucepan and place the container on the stove, turned on at medium level. Heat the liquid to approx. up to 45 degrees, the main thing is that it is not hot, and you can freely dip your fingers into it without getting burned. When the water heats up to the desired temperature, remove the saucepan from the stove and pour the warm liquid into a deep bowl, add 2 tablespoons granulated sugar and 2 teaspoons of dry granulated yeast. Mix the ingredients until smooth and leave the yeast in this form for 15 – 20 minutes, so that they infuse and “bloom”.Step 2: prepare butter and wheat flour.
While the yeast is brewing, it is worth preparing the flour and butter. Place in a clean small saucepan 220
gram of butter and place the container on the stove, turned on at a low level. Melt the fat until liquid, stirring with a wooden kitchen spatula, and make sure that it does not boil. When the butter has melted, remove the saucepan from the stove, place it on the countertop and let the ingredient cool to room temperature. If the oil is slightly warm during kneading, it’s okay, as long as it’s not too hot! 
Then take a deep bowl and sift into it 250
grams of wheat flour through a fine mesh sieve. This process is necessary! Due to it, the flour becomes drier, looser, and in this way you get rid of stray flour lumps and any other contaminants that could get into the flour package during its packaging at the factory. Step 3: prepare the dough.
After 15 – 20 minutes the yeast will dissolve, pour it into a deep bowl, pour the cooled butter into the same container, 1
a teaspoon of liquid vanilla essence, beat in 3 – 4
unshelled chicken eggs and whisk the ingredients until smooth and lightly fluffy. We devote ourselves to this process 2 – 3 minutes. Then add a quarter teaspoon of salt into the liquid mass and gradually begin to add flour to it. We act slowly, at the same time kneading with a tablespoon a homogeneous dough of medium thickness, without lumps. 
Afterwards, cover the bowl with a kitchen towel and place the container in a warm place, for example, near a switched on stove or radiator. Infusing semi-finished flour product 1 hour, during this time the dough will rise and increase in size by approximately 1.5 – 2 times.
Step 4: bring the dough to full readiness.
After 1 hour remove the kitchen towel from the bowl and add to the dough 150
gram of pearl sugar, mix it with a wooden kitchen spatula until smooth, cover the container again with a kitchen towel and let the semi-finished flour product brew in a warm place for another 10 – 15 minutes.
Step 5: bake Liege waffles.
While the dough is re-infusing, turn on and heat the waffle iron. After 10 – 15 minutes remove the towel from the bowl again and lubricate your clean hands 1
teaspoon of refined vegetable oil, divide the dough into 17 – 20
pieces of equal size and place them on a cutting board. 
When the waffle iron has warmed up to the desired temperature, put lumps of dough into it, the number of pieces placed depends on the type of waffle iron, some have only one compartment, others have from 2 to 6 compartments. Close the waffle iron and bake the waffles 3 – 4 minutes.
After the required time has passed, open the waffle iron, pry off the waffles one by one with a wooden kitchen spatula, transfer them to a metal oven rack and let the sweet dessert cool to room temperature. 
Cook the rest of the waffles in the same way until the dough runs out. Afterwards we place them on a large flat dish and serve them to the sweet table. Step 6: Serve Liege waffles.
Liege waffles are served at room temperature. After baking, their texture changes slightly, they become denser and a little dry, so the waffles should be eaten immediately after they have cooled. If desired, this delicious sweet dish can be supplemented with hot chocolate, any type of icing, jam, fruit, berries, condensed milk or jam. It is pleasant to enjoy this dessert with a cup of freshly brewed tea of any kind, with coffee, with a glass of cocoa or fresh milk. Cook with love! Bon appetit!
- – Instead of dry yeast, you can use fresh yeast, 50 grams for the above mass of ingredients.
- – Instead of liquid vanilla essence, you can use 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar.
- – Pearl sugar is a mandatory ingredient and, unfortunately, cannot be replaced with any other sugar! Its snow-white lumps are heat-resistant; at high temperatures they do not melt or caramelize, maintaining their original shape.
Which are already on the site. Both waffles are Belgian, only Brussels (a favorite recipe from childhood!) - soft, tender, usually rectangular in shape; and Liege ones are round, with a caramel sugar crust.
It’s because of the peculiarities of the composition that I’ve been meaning to bake them for so long. The fact is that to prepare real Liege waffles you need a special sugar - “pearl”, in large balls, which is called sucre grain perlé. I haven't seen this one for sale. You shouldn’t try it with regular sugar, the result will not be the same, and I didn’t really like the option of replacing sugar with crushed caramel suggested by some chefs. But finally a suitable recipe was found, for which I thank the reader of my site Anna, who suggested his address, and the author of the recipe anke_anke.
The pearl material used here is crushed refined sugar, which is much easier to implement!
The only difficulty is to get the hang of splitting the pieces evenly, but after 6-7 pieces, I got used to using a kitchen hatchet to split the pieces of refined sugar into almost equal halves, so you get cubes with a side of 1 cm. One piece weighs 2 g, so the recipe requires 50 pieces of refined sugar. True, the original contains 125 g of sugar, but the author uses 80 g. I chose the “middle” between these two options, taking 110 g of sugar and butter each.
The history of Liege waffles dates back to the 18th century. One of the most popular versions of their origin says that Gaufres de Liège was first prepared by the personal chef of the Prince of Liège, when His Highness wanted something new, sweet and tasty. The confectioner poured coarse sugar into the dough, and the prince, having tried the dessert with “sugar pearls” inside, was completely delighted. Let's try this original delicacy!
Glass with a volume of 200 g.
Ingredients:
For 6 pieces:
- 10 g fresh yeast;
- 2 teaspoons granulated sugar (10 g);
- 70 ml of warm milk (a little more than a third of a glass);
- 1 large egg;
- 1.5 teaspoons of honey;
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon;
- On the tip of a teaspoon vanilla (or a bag of vanilla sugar);
- A pinch of salt;
- 250-260 g flour (2 cups flush with the edges);
- 110 g softened butter;
- 100 g crushed refined sugar.
How to bake:
Pour in milk heated to 36-37C (pleasantly warm) and stir.
Sift 2 heaped tablespoons of flour and mix again so that there are no lumps left.
Cover with a towel and place in a warm place for 25-30 minutes. I had a bowl on top of the stove while the bread was baking in the oven. Meanwhile, take the egg and butter out of the refrigerator and let them sit at room temperature.
After half an hour, add the egg and honey to the suitable dough. If it is very sugary, you can slightly heat it in a water bath. Mix.
Sift the flour in 2-3 additions, adding salt, vanillin and cinnamon.
After mixing, add softened butter to the dough and knead until smooth.
The dough turns out thick, but quite sticky, so I added flour a little at a time during the process so that it wouldn’t stick too much to my hands. After adding oil, the dough becomes fattier and kneading becomes easier. But here you don’t need to be particularly zealous, as when kneading bread dough: it’s enough to achieve homogeneity.
Finally, pour “sugar pearls” into the dough, which are square, like in Minecraft, and mix them in so that they are evenly distributed.
Place the dough in a bowl sprinkled with flour, sprinkle lightly on top, cover and refrigerate until morning.
In the morning, it's time to bake delicious waffles for breakfast! Lubricate the surfaces of the electric waffle iron for Belgian waffles with a thin layer of vegetable oil and set it to heat up.
First, following the author’s advice, I divided the dough into 6 parts, weighing approximately 100 g each. But in the process it turned out that such pieces are too big for waffles - it is difficult to press the lid of the waffle iron, and the waffles are not round, but almost rectangular, since the dough occupies almost the entire volume. Therefore, for the next portions, I divided the remaining dough into smaller balls, weighing 60-70 g, and in the end I got not 6 waffles, but 8.
After rolling the dough into balls, place them in a preheated electric waffle iron. Since the balls are not very convenient to press, first press them lightly with your hand to make flat cakes, and then carefully close the waffle iron.
Bake until golden brown. My waffle iron took 5 minutes, and about halfway through I turned the waffles with a fork, since they brown more intensely on one side than on the other. But these are the features of a waffle iron - I think you and yours will also be able to find a common language!
Contrary to fears, nothing stuck to the waffle iron, the sugar did not burn and did not melt the waffles to its surface - rosy, fragrant, they came off perfectly! I was terribly curious: would there be pieces of hard sugar in the dough? After biting into the warm waffle, I discovered that it was soft! With that wonderful caramel sugar crust - crispy, but thin and delicate!
But I advise you to wash the waffle iron as soon as it cools down to an acceptable state: otherwise, as it cools, the sugar remaining on its surface caramelizes and becomes ungnawable. If this happens, then carefully, so as not to wet the electrical parts, fill the working surfaces with water and wait until the sugar crust melts.
Serve Liege waffles with berries or whipped cream. They are very tasty just like that, with milk, cocoa or latte. Warm waffles are delicious due to their fragile sweet crust; when cooled, they become a little harder, but are still good.
Until a certain time, I was quite indifferent to waffles. I haven’t tried the Belgian ones yet. Belgian waffles are not like their counterparts; they are much thicker, softer, and most importantly, tastier. Among the Belgian waffles, I found the Liege waffles to be especially interesting, with a typical caramel crust. I studied a lot of different sources and after studying I realized that although there are many recipes, there are quite a few trustworthy ones. I immediately rejected recipes that used the “wrong” sugar, then those where the consistency of the dough was liquid, then those that had too much yeast or no yeast at all, etc. In the end, I was left with a book about Belgian cuisine from my closet ;-) Because I was tired of searching on the Internet, it was too big...
The right sugar is important for Liege waffles. These waffles use so-called “pearl” sugar - sucre grain perlé. It is he who is responsible for this indescribable caramel crust, which distinguishes Liege waffles from all others. Not to be confused with coarse sugar for sprinkling on buns, such as Swedish kanelbulars, and cookies (German: Hagelzucker), it is much smaller and will not melt properly. It is much better to take refined sugar and split it into pieces of about 1 cm. In the photo in the middle there is Belgian sucre grain perlé, on the right is German Hagelzucker, and on the left are matches for scale :)
The second important thing is the consistency of the dough. Unlike most thinner waffles, which have a thinner batter, and Brussels waffles, which have a slightly thicker batter than pancakes, Liege waffles have a thick batter. You can easily make balls out of it, which is exactly what you need ;-)
The third important thing is a small subtlety of technology that is almost never mentioned. The waffle batter needs to sit overnight in the refrigerator. This is how it was in my book on Belgian cuisine, I saw it on the Internet only once, it even suggested putting the dough in the freezer for 30 minutes, and then in the refrigerator overnight. Because I won’t believe it until I try it, but I tried baking waffles immediately and after standing in the refrigerator. I liked the second option much more, the sugar melts much better, there are practically no unmelted pieces left, the caramel crust is more uniform and the structure of the dough itself is much better. So I’m definitely in favor of keeping the dough in the refrigerator, especially since it’s very convenient to knead the dough in the evening and bake waffles in the morning.
Many recipes on the Internet and books indicate an absolutely incredible amount of yeast - 70-80 g per 750 g of flour, although the dough is very heavy, it seems to me that 10 g per 250 g of flour is sufficient.
A batter of 250g flour is enough for 6 waffles and in my opinion, 6 waffles are enough for 6 people. Well, they are very filling. Recipe from a book about Belgian cuisine, slightly modified.
Liege waffles (Gaufres de Liège)
10 g fresh yeast
70 ml warm milk
250 g flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1.5 tsp. liquid honey
1 large egg, room temperature, slightly beaten with a fork
a pinch of salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla sugar
125 g soft butter*
125 g pearl sugar*
* these are the original proportions (2 parts flour / 1 part butter / 1 part “pearl” sugar - for me it turned out to be too sweet and too much butter. I reduced the amount of butter and sugar to 80 g each, I like it better this way , although a departure from the original recipe)
Dissolve yeast in warm milk, add 2 tbsp. flour, stir, cover with film and let rise for 30 minutes. Then stir in the egg, add honey, vanilla sugar, salt, cinnamon and the remaining flour. Then stir in the butter and, at the very end, pearl sugar. The dough turns out quite thick and viscous. Cover with film and place in the refrigerator overnight.
The next day, divide the dough into portions of 100-120 g, roll each into a ball, like this:
Heat a waffle iron (the best waffle iron is specifically for Belgian waffles, it is deeper and has larger indentations) and bake the waffles until a beautiful caramel crust forms (the time depends on the power of the waffle iron, about 3-5 minutes). You can serve with cream, various syrups, and fruits.
