The title of today’s entry says in Dutch: “Inventing Stroopwafels”.

What do you when you are a computer engineer and you want to set up a stroopwafel business and the nearest stroopwafel baker is about 10,000km far away.

Well fortunately there is the Internet nowadays. I have been googling about stroopwafels for the past 2 months and there is some information here and there that gives some hints about how to make stroopwafels.

There are thousands of questions…

• • How to make the dough

• • What ingredients to use

• • How to make the stroop

• • How to bake the stroopwafels

• • How much dough to use per stroopwafel

• • How to keep the dough

• • What waffle maker to use

• • etc.

The list goes on and on and on. You can read a little bit here and there about making stroopwafels, but the information is mainly restricted to  home baking. The furhter we get the more questions we got. One very useful tool is Youtube.

The most useful youtube video we found was by the company SETAH, which is the most established stroopwafel equipment manufacturer in the Netherlands. It shows a demonstration of how to bake stroopwafels for commercial use.Furthermore, I found some other youtube videos that show how stroopwafels are baked on the markets in the Netherlands and one useful video by Gaufres D”or (Golden Waffle), which is a stroopwafel franchise business in France.\n\nStroopwafels on the market in Delft\n

Watching the above video, I can”t help being amazed how the waffle just falls apart. There is no need to use a knife to separate the waffle. I really wonder how she does it… It is all in the recipe of course\n\nStroopwafels in France

So I have been analyzing and scrutinizing these videos to get the information I need. It is especially interesting to see how the stroopwafels are cut apart or even just fall apart, without the need to slit them. It must be the recipe…\n

Getting help

\nWell of course, being a computer engineer and watching some you tube videos, might not make you a professional stroopwafel baker. So, I googled around to see if I could get some further assistance. I found the web site of de stroopwafel bakker Piet Kluitmans. What struck me about his website, was his adventure about how he helped a stroopwafel baker in Egypt. So, I just wrote an email to Piet and asked him for advice. I promised him, that I can not promise him anything in return, but Piet was more than helpful and now provides us with all the who, what and hows about stroopwafels.\n\nAnother big help is a friend of mine Fausto Sivelli, who runs a bakery here in Kobe. Fausto offered me access to his kitchen, so we can play around with different recipes and perfect our stroopwafel.’