I know Christmas must be coming when I break out one of the few unitaskers in my kitchen: the VillaWare Prego Pizzelle Baker. I'm sure if I thought hard enough I could come up with something else to make with this small waffle iron (small waffles, maybe?). Last weekend I devoted an entire afternoon to cranking out dozens and dozens of pizzelles--thin, crisp wafers studded with fennel seeds. Up until now, I'd used the recipe from the instruction manual that came with the iron, but since I wanted to make a larger batch to give to friends, I decided to try the pizzelle recipe from Mario Batali's Holiday Food. The batter is a simple combination of eggs, flour, sugar, oil, baking powder and fennel seeds.
All in all, I turned about roughly five dozen pizzelles, two at a time. Since the iron took several minutes to reheat between batches, it was slow going. Still, I kept reminding myself that it could be slower, I could be using the single-pizzelle stovetop model pictured in Mario's book. I also recently noticed that VillaWare now makes a four-pizzelle iron. I don't know that I can justify buying another one though.
[Photo Nick Vagnoni]
What Can I Get You Folks? - Eating Out for Thanksgiving
In Defense of Guy Fieri
'Top Chef Vegas' - And Then There Were Five
