I was already a pretty big fan of the stroopwafels you can get back home — the round, thin discs of crispy, chewy, caramel-filled waffles that usually come in a cellophane-wrapped pile of five or six. They’re delicious.
But my stroopwafel love has been kicked to the next level, because I just had a freshly-made one in Amsterdam, and it was everything. It was one of the best things I’ve eaten in a long, long time.
It’s no surprise that it’s great. It’s basically a thin, slightly chewy and slightly crispy waffle encasing a very generous slathering of rich, gooey caramel. When the guy gave it to me he warned me that I need to keep it horizontal as much as I could, because the caramel would leak out, and yeah. There’s a lot of caramel in there. It’s ridiculous.
It’s so good.
You’d think it would be too sweet, but the pastry does a really great job of counterbalancing the sticky caramel. And the caramel is so good — sometimes caramel can basically just taste like gooey sugar, but the caramel here has an addictively rich flavour. It’s perfect.
As much as I liked the bagged version, I don’t know if I can ever go back. Comparing fresh to bagged is like comparing Chips Ahoy to a freshly-baked homemade chocolate chip cookie. They’re almost not even the same thing.