I finally tried my hand at wafers today! I started with this 15th century recipe from Gode Cookery and heavily adapted it. I ended up making two versions, a sweet and a savory (the savory is pictured here). I used Better Half's pizelle iron because 1) I don't have a waffle iron (Mom, if you are reading this, I hope you were sitting down for that; you must be so disappointed in me!) and 2) the recipe specifies that the wafers should be thin.Both recipes were based on this base formula:
1/4 cup ricotta cheese
1 egg
1/4 cup flour
Pinch salt
Beat egg and cheese together, add flour and salt and beat until basically smooth. Cook on pre-heated pizelle iron by very small spoonfuls until slightly browned. You may find it helpful, as I did, to grease the iron periodically (even though mine is non-stick). This yielded around 8 wafers.
For the savory version, I added 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese. These were so good that I ate all of them as they came off the iron and then made a second batch. I forced myself to let one get cold, though, and found that these are pretty awful cold. Since I know I'll have to serve them cold at the symposium, I decided I probably won't make these for that. But they are wonderful and I highly recommend them as a fun treat to make at home. They remind me of crepes and would be nice with a little pepper and sage, or wrapped around meat or eggs.
For the sweet version, which is closer to the original recipe, I added 1/4 tsp of ginger (I will double this next time, this was all the ginger I had left and I couldn't taste it) and 1 tsp of sugar. These stuck to the iron quite a bit as they have basically no added fat. These were definitely passable cold, and I think they'll go really well with the spiced cider that I'll be serving them with for the conclusion of the feast. They would also be absolutely divine with whipped cream, a blintz-like filling, or any kind of fruit syrup/sauce.
I am contemplating hunting down a pizelle iron that I can use on the fire next summer :)
