Liege Waffles

Tags: breakfast - dessert - vegetarian
Active Time: 1 hour
Passive Time: 2.5 hours to overnight
Serves: 4-8

Delicious Belgian Liege sugar waffles. Dense, sweet, buttery. Carmelized and crunchy on the outside, delightfully chewy and rich on the inside.

• Whole milk: 1/2 cup
• Water: 1/4 cup
  
  
• Raw sugar: 2 tbsp
• Active dry yeast: 7 g (2.5 tsp)
  
  
• Eggs: 2 large, room temperature
• Vanilla extract: 2 tsp
  
  
• Unbleached all-purpose flour: 460 g
  
  
• Kosher salt: 1 tsp
  
  
• Unsalted butter: 200 g (14 tbsp), very soft
  
  
• Pearl sugar: 1 1/3 cup (see notes)

• Stand mixer use is likely optional. In fact, if you any less than 1x the recipe and have a large mixer, using a stand mixer is a bad idea.
• If you don't have pearl sugar, I've had good success with raw turbinado sugar. I knead it into each dough ball separately. I essentially saturate each ball of dough with a lot of sugar, kneading and folding the dough over and over again until its got sugar crystals all throughout and covering the surface.
• I should look into exactly how many grams of sugar is in 1 1/3 cup of pearl sugar so I can be perhaps more consistent with the sweetness level when I'm not using pearl sugar. It's easy to not use enough sugar and then the waffles are still good, but not quite as sweet.
• These are great dipped in or drizzled with chocolate sauce. You can melt some chocolate in a bowl in the microwave with just a splash of milk to get desired consistency.
• After the room-temp rise, you can leave the dough (tightly covered with plastic wrap or in a zip-lock) in the fridge for a few days at least. Honestly the flavor just gets better with age.
• It's also possible to make something like pearl sugar on the stove-top. Combine 3/4 cup sugar with 1 tbsp water in a small pot. Heat on lowest possible setting and stir with wooden spoon until small clumps form. Clump as much sugar together as possible, minimizing loose sugar, but don't create overly large clumps. If there's too much loose sugar, add 1/2 tsp water and continue stirring. Don't add too much water. Let mixture sit over low heat for 15-30 mins, stirring occasionally. This will dry out the clumps. If clumps aren't sticking together, increase heat for 30 seconds or so. Then let cool completely so that the clumps harden.

1. Warm milk and water together to 110 - 116F. Place in stand mixer bowl. Add sugar and yeast, stir to dissolve. Set aside for 5 - 20 minutes, until foamy
2. Whisk in eggs and vanilla. Stir in 335 g flour using spoon or dough hook. Add salt and continue mixing
3. Add butter a spoonful at a time, thoroughly kneading, mixing, and scraping the dough after each addition until fully incorporated (it may take a lot of mixing)
4. Add the remaining 125g flour and knead with dough hook for 5 minutes or until glossy
5. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let rise at room temperature for 2 hours. Dough should double in size. Stir with spoon to deflate into mound
6. Optionally let the dough rest in the fridge overnight, covered. This will develop better flavor
7. Knead the pearl sugar into the dough
8. Divide the waffle dough into whatever sizes you'd like to cook. Cook on medium heat in waffle iron until deeply golden all over. Inside should still be somewhat soft