Jaffle irons from my mother weigh approximately 2 kg. It was constructed (forged may be a better word) during the 50s, probably by a blacksmith. The wooden handles were smoothed by generations of hands who made jaffles. This is the only thing I’ll never discard.
The design is also circular. There aren’t any new-fangled square jaffles here. Thank you greatly. Over time, it’s developed a beautiful layer of scorch marks, scratches, and unidentified grunge – the remains of toasties that have gone by. Bread is UFO-shaped and with the golden, concentric circles of a crop. The insides of the bread reach an approximate temperature of the sun and are guaranteed to smear the taste buds at 50 mph.
Jaffle irons aren’t seen everywhere anymore. Breville’s electric version was a major threat to them throughout the 1970s. When it introduced its Snack n Sandwich in 1974, Breville claimed to have sold around 400,000 units and amounted to 10 percent of Australian households during the first year. However, modern-day camping stores keep the tradition alive. Jaffre irons are the sole toasted sandwich maker that fits into a backpack and doesn’t burn in the campfire.
“It’s a travesty they’ve disappeared,” says chef Dean Little from Melbourne’s Half Acre. “We didn’t have the cast-iron versions growing up. It was the retro electric model with nylon cable. You needed to apply your entire body weight to shut your handle.”
Little’s preferred jaffle was always “unadulterated bolognese – no pasta, just the sauce.” For him, the hallmark of a good jaffle is the gnarly sealed edges. “You need those nasty corners – nasty in the best way – when the sauce oozes out the sides and goes super caramelised.”
To Daniel Wilson, chef at Melbourne’s Yakimono and co-founder of Huxtaburger, jaffles were a common snack on a Saturday.
“I’d play rugby in the morning and come home and have two,” He declares. “One was an egg jaffle, but I’m an Kiwi and we call them toasty sandwiches over there. And I recall the trick was always finding the right yolk. When you cut the jaffle the jaffle, you needed to hold the jaffle on its side so the yolk wouldn’t leak out.”
Wilson is also a fan of a mix of cheese and creamed corn, the mixture of which Anthony Femia from Melbourne fromagerie Maker and Monger is also a fan.
“Our Hafod Welsh cheddar with creamed corn is an absolute stunner,” Femia says. Femia. “The secret ingredient is some smoked jalapeno sauce.”
There’s not much Femia does not know about cheese and toasting it. Maker and Monger sell what is generally regarded as one of Melbourne’s finest toasties that have been scientifically optimized within the J Kenji Lopez-Alt style all the way to the pH levels of cheddar wrapped in cloth.
However, they’re definitely toasties but not jaffles, and Femia claims there’s a solid reason why. There was a time when jaffles were served (vegan jaffles, made in collaboration with Chef Shannon Martinez), he declared: “We needed like eight of those tiny Breville machines out the back, chewing up our electricity … If someone can invent an industrial jaffle-maker for under a thousand bucks, sign me up.”
One chef who prefers the classic jaffle iron model is Michael Li, now sous chef at Melbourne’s Old Palm Liquor. In the year 2018, Li was heading up the kitchen at the Chinese dining establishment Super Ling and created what would become a culinary phenomenon in Melbourne: the jaffle made of mapo tofu.
Imagine a golden discus of white bread sprayed with chili powder and then filled with Sichuan-spiced, sticky minced meat, fermented bean paste, and tofu. Li estimates that he cooked around 10,000 jaffles of map tofu during Super Ling’s time in the midst of an open flame in a wok, rotating the iron eight times per minute and then baking them.
“That’s the only problem with jaffle irons: they can burn if you don’t do it right,” Li says. Li. “I tried to make one in an apartment once and it fucking set everything on fire.”
There’s a rule that connects many fans of Jaffle No Tomato. Wilson is adamant about that: “It reaches that nuclear temperature.” Femia agrees: “You won’t taste anything for a week.”
However, beyond that, the jaffle is an empty canvas; its possibilities are only limited by human imagination. Femia speaks wistfully about Wild pine mushrooms, leeks Thyme, fontina cheese, and Thyme. Wilson has tried his hand at leftover carbonara pasta (“It’s very gutsy, carbs on carbs”). Little is a fan of sweet versions made with Nutella as well as marshmallows.
My nan’s signature jaffle was essentially aristocratic one egg that was free-range with the yolk melting as well as Berocca orange. Then, it was spiced with pepper and salt and sandwiched between 2 slices of buttery white bread. I devoured it straight from the iron, with crusts and the rest.
