Waffles

To make waffles, a batter, made from flour, butter, sugar, eggs, water or milk, and leavening, is cooked between the two hot plates of a waffle iron. Waffles are considered one of the oldest desserts in history. The ancient Greeks made obelios, a flat cake cooked between two hot metal plates. In Europe the Catholic Church made an unleavened wafer, a host for the Eucharist and a precursor to the waffle. In the thirteenth century laypersons were granted permission to make wafers and a secular, leavened wafer emerged called gaufres (Old French for wafla). Soon after, waffles gained their characteristic honeycomb from forged patterns in the cooking plates.