I’m in Ohio for a while, and unfortunately had to leave my ice cream maker in Tokyo. I have been dying to have an ice cream social, so we planned one with my extended family after our weekly Sunday night pizza (I love the Midwest!! Pizza and ice cream, sigh). Since I couldn’t make interesting ice cream flavors, I thought we could put together some really lovely toppings for our store-bought ice cream. We had pistachios, Spanish peanuts, caramel sauce (from Sweet Moses, my favorite!), hot fudge, fresh strawberry sauce, vanilla bean whipped cream, and homemade waffle bowls.
Strawberry sauce, waffle cone crumbs, Spanish peanuts and pistachios
For the ice cream: we bought birthday cake ice cream for my dad, who has a serious love of white cake. There was sugar-free vanilla for my diabetic grandfather. And we bought a tub of vanilla as a blank canvas for the rest of us to add our personalized topping combinations.
We all tried different combinations of toppings (and some went back for seconds and even thirds), but almost all of our sundaes had one thing in common: the homemade waffle bowl base. I used a pizzelle maker, which is a standard Italian-American household kitchen appliance, and a Martha Stewart recipe. They were a huge hit, even though they were a lot like vanilla pizzelle and not really like store-bought waffle cones. That was fine by all of us, as we happen to LOVE pizzelle.
My dad liked the waffle bowls so much that he chose to put only one scoop of ice cream in each bowl so that he could have two of them. I had also crumbled up some of the broken or less-attractive attempts into a waffle cone topping, which he added to the top of these sundaes as well. And when everyone was gone at the end of the night, he took the leftover strawberry sauce, added it to the bowl with the waffle cone crumbs, and ate the whole thing with a spoon. If that isn’t a ringing endorsement, then I’m not sure what is . . .
My dad’s first sundae with a waffle bowl, birthday cake ice cream, strawberry sauce and vanilla bean whipped cream.
Homemade Vanilla Waffle Cones or Bowls
makes 10 cones or bowls in this pizzelle maker
adapted from Martha Stewart
Special equipment: a pizzelle maker
2 egg whites
1 pinch of salt
3/4 cup powdered sugar
14 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup flour
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
neutral oil or nonstick cooking spray for the pizzelle maker
Beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Add the pinch of salt and 1 tablespoon of the sugar. Beat until stiff peaks form. Fold in the vanilla extract and the remaining sugar. Fold in the flour and butter until well-incorporated. Don’t over-mix though and collapse all of the egg whites, you still want the batter to be light and fluffy.
Follow the instructions on your pizzelle maker to preheat it. Use about 1 tablespoon of batter for each pizzelle (adjust according your specific machine). Cook until golden brown (mine took about 1 minute for each batch).
Keep the better light and fluffy.
For cones: Make or find a small cone. I made mine out of a paper plate, which I cut and taped into a small cone. I put tinfoil over mine so the batter wouldn’t stick. Place the hot wafer on the counter top with the cone in the middle. Mold the batter around the cone so that it forms a waffle cone shape. Let it cool for about 60 seconds before removing. I created a little ring out of foil to keep the wafer in place as it cooled, because it was too hot for me to hold onto!
A tinfoil ring around the cones keeps them in place without burning your fingers.
For the bowls: Find a very small bowl and a slightly larger one that fits over it. Put the smaller bowl upside down on the counter. Mold the hot wafer over the small bowl (careful, it’s very warm!). Put the larger bowl on top of the waffle bowl to sandwich it between the two bowls. Cool for 30-60 seconds, and voilà!
My sundae with a waffle bowl, vanilla ice cream, caramel sauce, pistachios, vanilla bean whipped cream and hot fudge.
Aunt Mel’s simple sundae of a waffle bowl, vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge and vanilla bean whipped cream. She was very sad when we ran out of whipped cream!
