New Year Waffles

In Belgium, it is the tradition to eat waffles on New Year's Day, a special kind of waffles. They are more cookie-like and are eaten as such, with no topping. The recipes vary from family to family but they are all very similar.
Although I make a double batch (about 80 waffles) and do give away a few (maybe a quarter), they never seem to last very long. Of course, I could make more but the beauty of tradition is to actually look forward to certain things only at certain times.

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Ingredients:

• 500g flour
• 500g sugar
• 4 eggs
• 300g butter
• 1 pkg vanilla sugar or 1 tsp vanilla extract
  

Preparation:

1. Sift the flour.
2. Make a well in the middle and put the sugar, egg yolks, softened butter (but in pieces) and vanilla sugar. Mix it all together.
3. Beat the egg whites and delicately fold them in.
4. Bake a spoonful of batter in a waffle maker (medium size squares).
   

Please note that the recipe above is from "Typiquement belge: Gaufres, crepes et galettes. Recettes et Traditions" (Editions Labor - 2006). This is not the exact recipe I used as mine is a family recipe passed down in my stepmother's family. She was kind enough to share her family recipe with me and we are all grateful for that :-D

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