Following are a few vegan waffle party highlights to report from the last several weeks.
Since the vegan waffle party began to go worldwide in 2008, several hosts have returned to throw parties in consecutive years. One, vegan pro cyclist Christine “Peanut” Vardaros, has hosted events all four years. What makes her party unique is that it’s in Belgium, which is particularly well known for its waffles. This includes the exceptionally rich Liege-style waffles that she likes to make. They use pearled sugar and are more challenging to make than your average waffle.
A few years back Christine posted a great basic vegan Liege waffle recipe that I highly recommend. I recently posted some info and tips on vegan Liege waffles along with a few flavored Liege waffle recipes. Highlights from Christine’s 2011 “Belgische Wafel Feestje”:
The waffle party was a big success! Jonas and I invited a few Belgian friends over and naturally made typical Belgian (vegan) waffles with pearl sugar which forms the typical gooey pockets in the waffles. Yum! For toppings, we had a wide variety to choose from. We had a tray of freshly sliced fruit such as bananas, apples, peaches, apricots, and some strawberries from the garden. For the non-fruit-eaters, we served powdered sugar, brown sugar, strawberry sorbet, Vermont maple syrup, coconut flakes, and melted dark chocolate – Belgian chocolate of course! We dipped the waffle pieces in the bowl of chocolate in fondue style. The most popular toppings were bananas, strawberries, brown sugar, maple syrup and chocolate. And in fine Belgian form, accompanying the waffles was mainly cold beer!
Sounds like it was delicious! It is interesting that even in Belgium, where waffles and chocolate are excellent, they sometimes use maple syrup from Vermont. 🙂
We also hosted a small follow-up to our own event. The weekend after “peak waffle party weekend,” my parents visited from Ohio. Because we had several leftover toppings remaining, we enjoyed an outdoor vegan waffle brunch. There were more toppings than they were able to sample before getting full! Afterwards, we took a long walk to utilize all the waffle energy.