Pudgy Pie aka the Jaffle

Pudgy pie. Hobo pie. Toastie. Jaffle is my preferred term, mostly due to an Australian friend but also because it’s fun to say and it also answers that long-standing question “What rhymes with waffle?” (See also: falafel) In the US, they’re a campfire treat. In England, they’re a snack you can order to soak up some beer at the pub. In Australia, they’re a magical morsel that floats down from the sky.

Until Tribunal co-author Crit explained the jaffle to me several years ago, I never really knew what the weird hinged iron was that had belonged to Mindy’s family and ended up on a shelf in our closet for years.

I wrote about them several years ago when I wrote up cheese sandwiches, and I mentioned at the time that our then-8-year-old son Ian was crazy about jaffles. Since then, I’ve picked up a longer-handled jaffle iron suitable for campfires, and Ian has become something of a mad jaffle scientist.

We do your typical ham and cheese jaffles, and your slightly-less-typical-but-still-relatively-ordinary margherita pizza jaffles from time to time.

But we also get into some more elaborate jaffles as well, and I thought I’d treat you to a few of those. Now these are, for the most part, nothing you won’t find in one of the many published pudgy pie cookbooks out there, or on other websites,

The making of a jaffle

We start with one half of the jaffle iron. Now this is iron, and has to be seasoned before first use and treated much like any other cast iron cookware in your house

The bottom slice of bread is buttered and laid across the jaffle iron butter-side-down.

Then you add your fillings, in this case Queso Chihuahua and chorizo.

The second slice of bread is added, this time butter-side-up.

Then the other half of the iron is hinged to the end and the iron is closed and locked in place with a hook.

With a round iron like this one, there are going to be corners and edges of the bread overhanging. With the iron closed, they are almost severed already and can be removed by simply running a knife around the edges of the iron.

And now you cook the jaffle. Some people insist that the iron should already be hot when the sandwich gets assembled inside it, and if you do several in a row with the same iron that will likely be the case. I haven’t seen much of a difference in the finished product. In a campfire situation, some folks will hold the over the fire like a marshmallow on a stick, while others will just rest them on the coals. I like to let the sandwiches take several minutes per side to cook, as I think it makes for a better crust and allows the insides to get hot. On a stove, I’ll use medium-low heat and let them cook 3-4 minutes per side.

This is what a jaffle looks like when it comes out of the iron. That golden crust and those crisp brown edges are going to be calling to you. That filling is going to be volcanically hot though. You’d better give it a minute.

Some jaffles we made

For the purposes of this blog post, I will be cutting each of these sandwiches in half to show you the cross section. Here’s that chorizo-and-queso one.

Have you ever had queso fundido? Stretchy, melty Mexican cheese with spicy salty crumbled chorizo, scooped up with chips or tortillas? This is kind of like that, only in a sandwich form.

Or how about the walking taco? Fritos, chili, and cheese eaten with a fork out of a bag? It’s even easier to eat in jaffle form. Full disclosure though, the Fritos don’t really hold their crunch.

Jaffles don’t have to be savory though. Pudgy pies on camping trips, in fact, are often made with sweet ingredients like this enhanced s’more pie, with peanut butter, chocolate chips, sliced banana, and mini-marshmallows.

Or this pie made with canned apple pie filling, with a nod to the tradition of serving apple pies with cheddar cheese.

Though they would both be considered dessert jaffles, neither one was overly sweet, which was refreshing. The peanut butter tamed the semi-sweet chocolate chip/banana/marshmallow combination, and the mild cheddar did the same for the apple filling.

Some of our farther-out ideas are still works in progress. For example, this crab rangoon jaffle. The filling, made with cream cheese, flaked crab, and chives, with a couple dashes each of soy sauce and Worcestershire, was pretty great, though I could have gone heavier on the chives. However, the ratio was off–the filling needs more crunchy bits so it doesn’t overwhelm, I’ll need to use less of it next time, though it would be worth trying it with something other than bread as well–won ton wrappers, or an actual pie crust.

I personally liked this one, a pseudo-Reuben made with some of the corned beef tongue from my Queen Alexandra post. Ian didn’t want the sauerkraut and Mindy didn’t want the tongue, so I had this jaffle all to myself.

Probably the best one we made this month though started with some smoked Gouda cheese, a maple and brown sugar bacon that I cured and smoked myself, and some peach jam that I made peaches acquired at a farm stand outside my train station. The combination of sweet and savory was outstanding.

It’s the kind of thing that doesn’t really have any limits–if you think a few different ingredients would taste good together, piping hot inside a crispy bread cocoon, get yourself a pie iron and give it a shot!