I was just in Amsterdam for several days at the beginning of June. It’s one of my favorite cities in Europe. I actually call it my Paris – because it’s a beautiful romantic city with great art and architecture and has such a great street food scene. Although I’m not a huge fan of the pickled herring you find almost everywhere on the street, there are many other delicacies that make up for that sort of Viking-esque barbaric street food. I always get the post trip blues having experienced all this great food and then coming back home and not having access to it. So, when I saw Poffertjes in the frozen section of my local Trader Joe’s I was blissful.
The history of the Poffertjes is supposed to come out of crappy tasting communion hosts used at the Catholic mass. I mean communion wafers still do taste horrible, but they’re not meant to taste great. In fact, there’s Canon (Church) Law that defines hosts to be made of just flour and water. If we’re gonna go all cannibal and eat our Lord and Saviour, shouldn’t we imagine he/she would taste like the most decadent, heavenly, delicious pastry you’ve ever had (like a Sebastian’s Ube Croissant)? Well, the Catholic Dutch did, specifically those of the highly Catholic provinces of Brabant and Limburg. These are also the provinces where goetta’s cousin balkenbrij was born. And, this is the area where Van Gogh painted what is considered his masterpiece – The Potato Eaters. Dutch communion wafers tasted so bad, the lay parishioners experimented with pancake batter type recipes and eventually when they found something so tasty and delicious, it didn’t fall within the canon law parameters of communion hosts. But these poffertjes found their way into the street food scene in the Netherlands, and even spread to neighboring Belgium to compete with their two types of Belgian waffles.
Poffertjes are easier to eat than Belgian waffles. They are smaller, bite sized – no cutting knife required – and can be eaten with a toothpick. Typically you get a plate of about 20 or so. They can even take the same toppings as the Belgian waffles. The simplest topping is powdered sugar, but like the American funnel cake, they can take a variety of sauces and fruit toppings. Sour cherry sauce, strawberries, fresh berries and cream are common toppings, as are drizzles of caramel and chocolate sauce. Some even top with maple syrup and then sprinkle with the other fun Dutch treat, sprinkles they call Hagelslag, that Dutch children put on top of buttered toast for breakfast. There’s even a savory version of the poffertjes that includes a filling of Gouda cheese.
There’s a theatre involving the making of poffertjes that must be seen to get the whole experience and there are numerous YouTube videos to watch. There are specialty griddles that have dimples the exact size to fill with the batter. A vendor uses a funnel with a release button to fill each dimple individually onto a hot griddle. By the time they’re done filling, its about time to flip each one over, which he does one by one with a small toothpick. The speed with which they turn the little puffy pancakes over is astounding and fun to watch. But even with the fastest, the ones flipped at the end of the griddle will be a bit browner than the first ones flipped.
There are several companies that make a poffertjes insert that sits in the standard sized cast iron pan so that they can be made at home. This would be a fun treat to bring to Cincinnati for our various Oktoberfests and Germanic themed festivals. Kids love watching their poffertjes being made in front of them. And, not being deep fried like our standard American funnel cake, they’re a bit more heart conscious of a treat. Look out Taste of Belgium!
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