Maple Pizzelle

Biggest Impact: Maple Extract

Making something maple-flavored can sometimes be tricky.

1. The amount of maple syrup needed for maple flavor to come through in a cooked pizzelle would flood your batter and turn it into a sticky, unworkable mess. There's really not much liquid, at all, to play around with here.
2. And while I have seen granulated maple sugar, it's PRICEY and I'm not sure it would even achieve more than a hint of flavor in maple pizzelle to be worth it.
3. The answer? Maple extract. It's ultra-concentrated, inexpensive, and won't throw off the balance of wet/dry ingredients in a cookie recipe.

I've personally tried multiple varieties over the years, including Frontier Co-op in the early days (until they reformulated...), then switched to ordering Mapleine imitation flavoring online (dark and kind of thick but worked well enough), and now use McCormick. I think it's newer? Anyway noticed it one day in my regular grocery store for just a few bucks, and find it has the least "weird" scent or texture out of all of them.

Maple Pizzelle Ingredients

• Brown sugar: Either light or dark brown sugar are fine here. I usually use whatever's open, including mixing the two if I'm finishing off a bag.
• Melted butter: Make sure this is melted and slightly cooled, where the butter is still liquid but not piping hot straight from the microwave or pan. This is so it doesn't begin to cook and scramble the eggs when it's added to the egg and sugar mixture.
• Maple extract: The section above this one has more details, but in short: use maple baking extract - maple syrup is not a good substitute. Maple extract is becoming less of a specialty ingredient now that some of the mainstream extract brands sell it in grocery stores for sub-$5.
• Baking powder: If your taste buds have picked up on a slight metallic tinge in baked treats before (me), it may be because the recipe calls for a higher amount of baking powder, and that baking powder was a traditional double-acting variety that uses a food-safe (of course) aluminum compound. I recommend using a double-acting baking powder specifically called out to be aluminum-free, or does not contain sodium aluminum sulfate in the ingredient list. Argo is my current go-to.

Step-by-Step Instructions

1. Step 1: Beat eggs and brown sugar with an electric mixer until combined.

2. Step 2: Mix in the melted butter, then add the maple and vanilla extracts.

3. Step 3: Separately whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.

4. Step 4: Mix the dry ingredients into the bowl of wet ingredients until just combined. The batter will be fairly thick.

5. Step 5: Heat and prepare your pizzelle press as required. For mine, I brush vegetable oil on the grids before beginning. Scoop batter...

6. Step 6: ...then close the lid and cook to your preferred doneness. Immediately remove to cool flat on a wire rack. Then repeat! And repeat, and repeat...

Tips and Tricks

• Preparing your pizzelle press: This can vary press to press, whether yours is electric/non-stick or cast iron. For my 20+ year old electric non-stick press, I brush a thin layer of vegetable oil on the top and bottom grids before beginning. That's enough to prevent any sticking the whole batch through with these maple pizzelle (stickier batters, like gingerbread pizzelle, benefit by reapplication throughout).
• Sizing trial and error: It always takes me a round or two to get my bearings when it comes to how much batter to scoop per pizzelle. In the process shots above you can see what sized blobs I used on my first round and what they looked like when pressed (too small).
• Less-mess scooping: A cookie scoop with a swinging arm helps speed up the scooping process and makes it a fair amount easier to portion out equally-sized blobs. For pizzelle I'll either use a generously heaping teaspoon cookie scoop or a not-quite-filled medium scoop to arrive between 2-3 teaspoons of batter per 4-inch cookie.

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