I scored myself a bargain the other day. Perusing the kitchen appliance aisle of Kmart with the intention of purchasing either a deep-fryer or a ‘health grill’ (it was a toss-up between these, due to the clear similarities between the two), I spotted it. Buried deep in that section filled with novelty appliances that no one in their right mind actually needs- a poffertje maker. I’d been thinking of making poffertjes- the baby pancakes so popular on the streets of the Netherlands- during MoFo, but the only poffertje pan I had come across was cast iron and $30. Thoughts of tiny pancakes dancing through my head, I grabbed the giant box and lugged it to the nearest price check station. $12. It was a done deal.

(Interestingly enough, the poffertje maker is only the second most useless appliance we own. The first being the Shrek hotdog maker that belonged to our old housemate and somehow ended up in our boxes when we moved to Canberra, despite neither of us wanting it.)

Tonight it was time for the poffertje maker to prove my $12 to be a wise investment. The makers had clearly cut costs when making the instructions (which actually read ’1: turn on machine. 2: put food you want to cook on the hot part. 3: take the food off the hot part when it is cooked’), so surely the savings were put towards the high quality machine itself.

Poffertjes with speculoos syrup

And what do you know, it worked pretty well!

I used a ‘traditional’ yeasted poffertje recipe that I came across online, which turned out to be a bit of a mess and required a lot of fiddling with. They ended up just tasting like (tiny, adorable) pancakes anyway, so a regular pancake batter would probably do the job just fine.

The real excitement here, though, is the syrup accompanying the poffertjes. The internet recommended maple syrup, but that’s a little boring, and just not that Dutch. But what’s more Dutch than speculoos (windmill) cookies? Enter the hero of vegans worldwide, Biscoff spread- the spread made from cookies. It’s every bit as glorious as its sounds, and as discovered tonight, when mixed with maple syrup it becomes a magical topping for poffertjes. There was no real recipe here- just the speculoos spread combined with maple syrup (I was a little more generous with the speculoos than the maple syrup, due to deliciousness), warmed through and with the Dickens stirred out of it.

Magic! And the whole thing was well worth the $12… just maybe not the potential house fires that my high-quality poffertje maker may cause.

Tagged: dessert, dutch, street food, veganmofo