FRANCE
Le Menagier de Paris (believed to date to 1393)iii.
I note that the original says it provides four manners, but then lists another use for the wafer irons.
Rough translation (the title in each is my own designation and is not in the original text)
Wafers are made in four ways.
[Gauffres:] The first is that you beat eggs in a bowl, and then salt and wine, and throw in it the flour, and mix one with the other, and then put in two irons little by little, and each time as much paste as a slice of cheese is large, and press between two irons, and cook on one side and the other; and if the iron does not get release the paste well, anoint it before with a small cloth wet in oil or in fat.
[Gauffres frommage:] The second way is like the first, but you put in cheese, which is to say that you make sure that the paste is spread out as if to make a tart or pastry, then put in slices of cheese by slices in the middle and cover the two ends so the cheese remains between the two pastes and thus is put between two irons.*
[Gauffres couleisses:] The third manner, is a strained wafer, and are called strained only because the paste is more light and is boiled clear, made as above; and enjoy it with fine grated cheese; and all mixed together.
[Pestrie a l'eaue:] The fourth way is the flour paste with water, salt and wine, without eggs or cheese.
[Gross Bastons:] Item, the wafer irons also do a different service, called big sticks which are made of a flour paste which eggs and powdered ginger powder beaten together, and these are large and in a shape similar to andouilles**; put between two irons.
*Yes! Toasted cheese wafers!
**Andouilles are a form of sausage. It seems likely that this means the wafers are cooked in the iron and then rolled up while hot to make tubes.
ENGLAND
Waffres.iv 15th century. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888. Two Fifteenth-Century Cookery-Books
Wafers. Take the womb of a luce (pike), & boil it well, & mash it in a mortar, & add soft cheese, grind them fair; then take flour and egg whites & beat together, then take sugar and powdered ginger, & put them all together, & look that the egg is hot, & make a thin paste, & make thin wafers, and serve them.
The English Housewif, Gervase Markham, 1615
To make the best Wafers, take the finest wheat-flowers you can get, and mix it with Cream, the yelks of Eggs, Rose-water, Sugar, and Cinamon, till it be a little thicker than Pancake-batter, and then warming your Wafter Irons on a charcoal-fire, anoint them first with sweet Butter, and than lay on your batter, and press it, and bake it white or brown at your pleasure.
To make wafers, 1658 Archimagirus Anglo-Gallicus; Or, Excellent & Approved Receipts and Experiments in Cookery (London: 1658)
Take Rose-water or other water, the whites of two eggs and beat them and your water, then put in flower, and make them thick as you would do butter for fritters, then season them with salt, and put in so much sugar as will make them sweet, and so cast them upon your irons being hot, and roule them up upon a little pin of wood; if they cleave to your irons, put in more sugar to your butter, for that will make them turn.
Belgian 15th/16th century recipesvAll credit to Christianne Muusers who has painstakingly transcribed and translated these two recipes.
Take grated white bread. Take with that the yolk of an egg and a spoonful of pot sugar or powdered sugar. Take with that half water and half wine, and ginger and cinnamon.
Grate white bread, [add] as many eggs that the dough is liquid (litt. “soft”). Take for a dosen eggs about one glass of wine and a little sugar to sweeten the wine well, and some melted butter in it. They are also made with wheat flour. [Made] with [grated] bread is the best.
ITALY
To make wafers with crumb of bread and sugar. Scappi 1570 , folio 420, book 6
Take crumb of bread and let it moisten in cold water and strain it through a sieve. Make a paste of it and wheat flour, rosewater and sugar and simple water and fresh egg yolks. Because otherwise you won’t be able to make wafers make the paste liquid and firm.
When you have the irons add a little malmsey wine, and make the wafers. If you want it with pulp of capons boiled in water and salt. Paste this meat in a mortar and temper with a little cold water and pass with the bread crumb through the sieve and mix together with the other things and make wafers. One can also make with almond milk and egg yolks.
End notes (original language versions)
1. Boke of Nurture by John Russell, 1440-1470
The iijd Course.
“Creme of almondes, & mameny, þe iij. course in coost,
Curlew / brew / snytes / quayles / sparows / mertenettes rost,
Perche in gely / Crevise dewe douȝ / pety perueis with þe moost,
Quynces bake / leche dugard / Fruture sage / y speke of cost,
and soteltees fulle soleyñ:
þat lady þat conseuyd by the holygost
hym̅ þat distroyed þe fendes boost,
presentid plesauntly by þe kynges of coleyñ.
Afftur þis, delicatis mo.
Go we to þe fysche fest while we haue respite,
& þañ with goddes grace þe fest willebedo.
Blaunderelle, or pepyns, withcarawey in confite,
Waffurs to ete / ypocras to drynk with delite.
now þis fest is fynysched / voyd þe table quyte
and for some dietary advice:
Bewar at eve/ of crayme of cowe & also of the goote, þauȝ it be late,
of Strawberies & hurtilberyes / with the cold Ioncate,
For þese may marre many a mañ changynge his astate,
but ȝiff he haue aftur, hard chese / wafurs, with wyne ypocrate.
A l’oubloier convient ordonner: _primo_, pour le service de la pucelle, douzaine et demie de gauffres fourrées[719], trois sols; douzaine et demie de gros bastons, six sols; douzaine et demie de portes, dix-huit deniers; douzaine et demie d’estriers, dix-huit deniers; un cent de galettes, succrées, huit deniers.
Item, fut marchandé à luy pour vint escuelles, pour le jour des nopces au disner, et six escuelles pour les serviteurs, qu’il aura six deniers pour escuelle, et servira chascune escuelle de huit oublies, quatre supplications et quatre estriers.
Gauffres sont faites par quatre manières. L’une que l’en bat des œufs en une jatte, et puis du sel et du vin, et gette-l’en de la fleur, et destremper l’un avec l’autre, et puis mettre en deux fers petit à petit, à chascune fois autant de paste comme une lesche de frommage est grande, et estraindre entre deux fers, et cuire d’une part et d’autre; et se le fer ne se délivre bien de la paste, l’en l’oint avant d’un petit drappelet mouillé en huille ou en sain.
La deuxième manière est comme la première, mais l’en y met du frommage, c’est assavoir que l’en estend la paste comme pour faire tartre ou pasté, puis met-l’en le frommage par lesches ou milieu et recueuvre-l’en les deux bors; ainsi demeure le frommage entre deux pastes et ainsi est mis entre deux fers.
La tierce manière, si est de gauffres couléisses, et sont dictes couléisses pour ce seulement que la paste est plus clère et est comme boulie clère, faicte comme dessus; et gecte-l’en avec, du fin frommage esmié à la gratuise; et tout mesler ensemble.
La quarte manière est de fleur pestrie à l’eaue, sel et vin, sans œufs ne frommage.
Item, les gauffriers font un autre service que l’en dit gros bastons qui sont fais de farine pestrie aux œufs et pouldre de gingembre batus ensemble, et puis aussi gros et ainsi fais comme andouilles; mis entre deux fers.
3. Harleian MS. 279 & Harl. MS. 4016, London: for The Early English Text Society by N. Trübner & Co., 1888.
Take þe Wombe of A luce, & seþe here wyl, & do it on a morter, & tender cheese þer-to, grynde hem y-fere; þan take flowre an whyte of Eyroun & bete to-gedere, þen take Sugre an pouder of Gyngere, & do al to-gerderys, & loke þat þin Eyroun ben hote, & ley þer-on of þin paste, & þan make þin waffrys, & serue yn.
4. The first volume of the convolute KANTL Gent 15: W.L. Braekman, “Een belangrijke middelnederlandse bron voor Vorselmans’ Nyeuwen Coock Boeck (1560)” (An important Middle-dutch source for Vorselman’s New Cookbook’) . In: Volkskunde 87 (1986) pp. 1-24
The second and third vols of the convolute: W.L. Braekman, Een nieuw zuidnederlands kookboek uit de vijftiende eeuw. Scripta 17, Brussel, 1986.
Om ghode waffellen te backen.
Nempt gheraspt wijt broet. Nemt daer toe enen doijer van enen ey ende enen lepel pot sucars of melsucars, ende hier toe nempt half waters ende half wijns ende ghenbar ende canel.
Neemt ende raspt witte broot, daer eyer in alsoe vele dat is al morw deech, ende tot eender dosijnen eyer omtrent een gelas wyns, ende een lutken zuycker om den wyn wel zoet te maeken, ende wat gesmelter booteren daer in. Men maeckse oeck wel alsoe van terwenbloemen. Vanden broot eest best.
