How to Bake Italian Pizzelle Cookies

Tom Papoutsis: Hi! I’m Tom Papoutsis and we’re back and making Pizzelles today. And today I have with me Tess Molasso, my expert on making Pizzelles. We’re ready to start making our Pizzelles but first, we got to have our equipment to do it. This is actually a Pizzelle iron. I have two Pizzelle irons here. This is a new version of a Pizzelle iron. As you can see, it’s nice and pretty and white and kind of brand new looking because I’ve only used once or twice. And when you open it up, you can actually see that it has a Teflon coating on the griddle surfaces because essentially this is like a waffle iron. It’s what it is. It just has a little bit different iron on it but these are Teflon coated so that the batter doesn’t stick. Now, we also have Tess’. This is her personal Pizzelle iron. This thing probably has 250 million Pizzelles through it. She said this thing a long time and as you can see this one’s well to used. Now me personally, if I have my choice and I said okay which one would I want, this is the one. This one here if you look at this thing, open it up, nice and hot, that’s the way we want it. But you can see how this is black and it looks kind of it’s used but this is what’s known as a cured iron. This thing is cured and you don’t have to worry about the nonstick. It takes a couple of dozen she tells me, right? Tess: Right. Tom: A couple dozen to get it there? Tess: Right. Tom: Now, this has a polished metal surface. It’s not the Teflon. It’s actually polished metal but she’s used it for so long, the oils and everything— Tess: Darken them. Tom: Darkens it up and it’s kind like a cast iron skillet, if you will. If you use a cast iron skillet and you don’t you soap on this, right? Tess: No. Tom: Never used soap. Tess: No. Tom: Because the soap takes the oil off, the oil which your nonstick and that build up the black is what actually gives you the flavor and it also helps with the nonstick, right? Okay, so that’s a little bit about our irons. Now, we’re ready to start making our Pizzelles. And we’re going use Tess Iron and we’re going to use her batter here for the original that we’re done today because we’ve got the original and then I made up about to Amaretto flavor. So, tell us what you’re doing here, Tess? Tess: Well, I don’t know about the consistency. It seems a little thin but I’m going to try and see what happens. Tom: Okay. Tess: Now, how do I do this. Tom: Can I pull this over here? We just pull over there, here we go. Awesome! Tess: Spoonful there. Tom: One spoonful. Tess: Right. Tom: Okay. Tess: And another spoonful on the other side but if I can keep up from dripping. Tom: Okay, and as you can see this isn’t like a cake batter. This is a thin batter. Tess: Right. Tom: Kind of eggy in a sense. Tess: Now we’ll see how that works. Tom: It’s kind of got that consistency. Tess: We’re going to close the iron and see how long. It’s about a minute. Tom: Okay, about a minute? Tess: Yeah. Tom: So, we’re going to take a minute. I’m going to go ahead and close this and just press it down. Tess: Right. Tom: Okay. Tess: I need fork to get that all. Tom: Is that a sizzle? Tess: Yeah. Tom: I hear sizzle. So, you need fork, right? Let me get you fork. So, we got a minute right. We’re about 15 seconds and your counting, right? She said she counts. Tess: I do, and I count from one through. Tom: So, if you make three dozen pizzelles how many times do you count? Okay, so we’re about 30 seconds. Tess: Okay, because of the thin texture, let’s check it out. Tom: You want to check it first, okay so unclip it and we’re going to lift this gently. Tess: Well, we could say just a few minutes more. Tom: A few minutes more or seconds. I don’t think we want to go in minutes doing. Tess: Yeah. Tom: So, here we go. We’re just about a minute. Tess: Yeah, it’s okay. Tom: How is that? Tess: No. Just get it out. Tom: Just set it there for now. I need to get a plate. Here I go and look at that. Tess: Oh that’s great! I like the consistency of that. Tom: Is that good? Tess: Yes. Tom: I’m going to close this very quickly. And you can see how they’re kind of flexible if you will. Tess: But they’ll get brittle when they get cool. Tom: When they start to cool down, right? So what I’m going to do if you hand me that one, I’m just going to set this here on this towel for now. Is that good? Tess: Okay. Tom: This is how easy it is, folks. All you got to do is make your batter, have a nice hot iron. You’re going to go about a minute so you’re going about to a minute and just keep going with it until you have used your batter up and you got a stack. Now, one other thing that we’re going to do it with this before we finish up here but what I’ve got, this is actually a lemon reamer but you can see the conical shape to it. And we’re going to make a cone with it. The other thing what we’re going to do is we’re going to take this glass and we’re going to drape it over and we’re going to make a bow. Now, some things that you can do with this, I think we’re done, right? Tess: Yeah. Tom: I’m sitting here talking, there we go. So we’re going to take this one. It’s the bigger of the two. And we’re just drape at right over top of there and press it down, right? Tess: Of course. Tom: Press it down. It’s hot. Tess: Okay, let it cool. Tom: Okay, we’re going to set there. Let it set and cool and we’ve got this one and pull that one off and what I’m going to do with this one is I’m going to take. Tess: That should be bigger. Tom: Yeah, it should be bigger but you can get the idea and that thing is hot. Let me tell you, but you can get the idea where we would actually roll this. You can set it down here and then just roll it and make a cone so that you could actually let it set just like that, because I’m going to show what we can do with that. I’ve got an idea, okay. But if you take this, if you made a roll with it with the big enough Pizzelle, what you could do is you could actually make an ice cream cone with this. And actually with this, with the thicker it might actually work better but you can actually make a cone or what you could do is kind of make it like a shell like this and make some canolli filling if you will and stuff it with canolli feeling. Look at that nice, little ice cream bow. If you wanted to make a full size one, you can make your bowl bigger or you could put like a custard or a mousse. You could make a chocolate mousse and use the Amaretto flavoring in your mousse and that would make an awesome bow. And Tess, thank you. It was awesome and I’ve always wanted this recipe. I finally got the recipe and I had you here to do it but thank you very much. Tess: My pleasure. Tom: And hopefully these folks up here would be able to take what you’ve given us and enjoy these Pizzelles. Tess: Thank you, thank you for having me here.