Dutchie - a Delicious Stroopwafel 

Ingredient|% :---|---: Biscuit (INAWERA)|1 Bourbon (Vanilla Bourbon) (FA)|0.5 Brown Sugar Extra (TPA)|0.5 Butter Cream (CAP)|1 Creme Brulee (INAWERA)|1 Maple Syrup (FA)|0.5 Rich Cinnamon (Flavorah)|0.15 Sugar Cookie (CAP)|3 Waffle (INAWERA)|0.15

Flavor total: 7.81%

WTF is Stroopwafel? If you've never had a stroopwafel, I highly recommend hunting some down. It's a cookie from the Netherlands that smushes a thick, decadently sweet layer of syrup between two ultra thin, chewy waffles that is “baked” on a special waffle iron. The name is Dutch for “syrup waffle”. Like most things, there is an entire subreddit dedicated to these delicious bastards. Oddly, though, no juice recipes to be found either here, ELR or ATF.

As soon as I started DIY, I picked some up from a few different bakeries for “research purposes”, because this was a mix I knew I wanted to make. Assembling what I considered the right ingredients to mix it, however, took a bit longer.

Here's a breakdown of the recipe.

The "Wafel" - Too soft to really be classified as a cookie, but too dense to be considered "cakey", I really felt like the hard part would be nailing down the waffle part of the stroopwafel. There's no snap and no crumb to replicate. What you want is all bendy and al dente with no leavening; a thing your teeth slowly and satisfyingly sink into until you break through to the gooey, sugary syrup of the filling.

• INW Waffle & Biscuit: used at fairly low percentages so these are more accents to the cookie. Careful with that INW Waffle! This recipe literally weighs in at a single (but full) drop (in a 15ml batch), because that stuff is intense! It's also perfect for this recipe, because, it's providing the very necessary iron-cooked taste of the waffle, so, just a whiff. The INW Biscuit is just adding a slightly drier, crisper note to the real cookie body, which is...

• CAP Sugar Cookie: This is a nice, soft, malleable cookie base that stands to serve as a believable stroopwafel foundation. Without the Biscuit & Waffle, however, it just wouldn't work here.

• FA Bourbon Vanilla & FLV Rich Cinnamon: These are my flourishes, because I cannot imagine a cookie base without some vanilla, and FA Bourbon Vanilla holds up the bakery-vanilla end of that deal here. The FLV Rich Cinnamon, another single-drop ingredient (again, in a 15ml batch), and can totally be omitted, but, when you see the filling going on here, why would you? It's a really nice touch, and so low it's more of a sensation than a flavor.

The "Stroop" - The filling has the texture of semi-crystallized raw honey, and it's packed with ooey-gooey sweetness. It's dark and rich and redolent with caramelized syrup notes.

• FA Maple Syrup & TFA Brown Sugar Extra: I've had 2 versions of the Stroopwafel, the traditional caramel-filling sweetened kind, and the (vegan-friendly) maple-syrup sweetened option. Both have their charms, but, where I have an easier time working these 2 ingredients into a larger recipe, this is the one you get until I figure out how to introduce FLV Caramel into a more involved mix. Which is why I chose this unexpected ingredient...

• INW Creme Brulee: fattens up that filling with butter/custard, and maybe cheats in a little of the caramel aspect with that “torched-sugar” note. When it's richness combines with the maple & brown sugar, it gives the filling it's gooey-sweet body. If there's one ingredient that can be subbed in this mix, this is it, which you can do in favor of a caramel, but I personally think INW Creme Brulee is a spectacular ingredient, and I really wanted to use it. It also doesn't hurt that I was instantly pleased with the results, because at 1%, it doesn't introduce what “reads” as a custard flavor, it just lends richness.

• The Wildcard - CAP Butter Cream: I have a hard time articulating where, exactly, I'm using this. Is it giving the cookie part the buttery note it needs? (I always feel a distinctly unctuous feeling on my lips after biting into a Stroopwafel, so I suspect that part is buttery). Or, is it lending additional richness to the filling? Either way, don't omit it. If I tinker with this aspect at all, it would be to replace CAP Butter Cream with Cap Golden Butter at about 0.25% or 0.50%, but Butter Cream did what I wanted so I left it for now.

Percentages & Steep Time: I mixed this at 70/30 VG/PG and found it tasty as hell after a 2-day rest, but the filling really homogenizes as it's own thing and the cookie notes get much more defined after 7+ days, so, as always, more time is better.

Final Notes: This recipe came together fairly quickly once all the players were in place, and it bears mentioning that I am going against the advice of my husband by releasing this version, rather than the first one. When I put that first mix into his hands, I didn't tell him what it was. He took a hit and said; “Stroopwafel!” and declared it perfect. I however, was unconvinced. I didn't feel like the cookie part was defined enough, so I revised it, with disastrously muddled results. I brought up everything I thought was lacking way too high. Because me. So, I tinkered and re-balanced, and this is the version that I think is “the one”.

However, if anyone wants to try a decidedly sweeter version, it's HERE, but, it's really lacking the cookie, in my opinion.

Either way, this equally delicious as an after-dinner vape as it is with a cup of coffee in the morning, but it likely too sweet to qualify as an ADV for most.

Oh, and the name is fairly obvious, because the stroopwafel is a Dutch treat, but it's also a tip-of-the-cap to my grandpa, a rum-runner, who used to play cards with bootlegger and crime lord Dutch Schultz in the late 1920's, and called him “Dutchie”.