The stroopwafel recipe we are using successfully at the moment uses dry yeast. The result is a smoothly baked stroopwafel, which is easy to split. It sometimes even puffs up when it comes out of the waffle maker and we have to flatten it with a filling knife. Apparently commercial recipes do not use yeast, so we started experimenting a recipe without it.

We took the same ingredients as normal, but left out the dry yeast. The process of making the dough was equal, but I had to add 5% more flour to get the same consistency as normal. We left the dough resting for one hour and started baking.

Wow… it was quite different. Our first waffle came out quite white, so we flipped it back onto the waffle iron to give it a few more seconds till it was brown. We noticed that the moisture level of the stroopwafel was much higher as our recipe with yeast. While baking the waffle, you could hear the sizzling of the escaping moist. We adjusted the timer and increased the temperature. Our waffle maker started smoking and the waffles turned out slightly overdone on the outside and too soft on the inside. We reached a workable temperature/timer setting at 220 degrees and 55 seconds, whereas we are used to bake at 190 degrees and 43 seconds.

Apart from that, the waffle was not spreading as much as it used to spread, so we ended up with waffles that were smaller than our 8.5cm round cutter. Even though we increased our dough from 23gr to 24gr per waffle, the edge of the baked waffle hardly reached the edge of the cutter

So the result was quite surprising. I thought that the yeast would have some effect on splitting the waffle as it comes out of the waffle maker.  Instead the whole baking process was effected. We had to increase the temperature and baking time, which is not very good for the production process. Additionally, the waffle was not spreading, so we had to increase the amount of dough in order to reach the same size waffle.

After leaving the stroopwafel one day and doing a tasting test, there is a noticeable difference in sweetness of the waffle. The yeast in the waffle apparently reacts with the sugar and reduces the sweetness, while the waffle without yeast tastes a lot sweeter, too sweet in fact. So if we don”t use yeast, we will need to reduce the amount of sugar.

So the conclusion is that simply omitting the yeast would not be a viable option. We will need to find another ingredient that can compensate for the above described issues. I have been googling around for the effects of yeast on a dough, but could not find any useful information so far.