liege waffles are a type of belgian waffle, yeast-risen with pearl sugar added to give it a distinctive crunch. pearl sugar, unlike normal sugar, are larger, coarser and do not melt on high heat therefore they retain their shape after baking. in the past when i didn't have much baking experience, i've always thought there's only one type of waffle and thats the liquidy kind you normally make in a waffle maker and eaten with syrup or ice cream. so when i came across this type of cutesy belgian waffle at starbucks, i tried to replicate it by making it in my waffle maker and was dismayed that it could not "retain" its shape! it was only much later that i realized that this sort of waffle are yeast-risen and are made from a round dough. very silly of me.


i therefore went out to buy a stove-top waffle maker and with the swedish pearl sugar i got from the baking supplies store, i made these. there were a plethora of recipes out there, very happy to come across this one because it was really very good. the waffles were slightly more work since you need to knead it like you would a bread dough and proof it but the texture was great - crisp on the outside, soft and crunchy on the inside and it smells amazing of vanilla and butter. definitely making these again! my only gripe was that dividing the dough into 6 equal portions were still rather large in my opinion so i would probably do 8 portions next time.

on an unrelated note, just a friendly reminder to remind you guys to save recipes onto your OWN pc/tablet/email whenever you come across any that you'd like to try. don't just bookmark the site or blog thinking that you'll just refer to the recipe from there later on. i've come across blogs that are put private without any warning, leaving readers to beg to be invited back in because "my family's favorites are in there and i can't access your blog now. send me an invitation, pretty please?" sort of thing. don't expect blogs or websites to be up there forever because anything that can happen, will. murphy's law. you know it too, right?