What is a Jaffle?

A post  on-line —about a porridge jaffle — sparked a conversation between me, a NZ writer friend and several others this morning.

She’d never heard of the term jaffle, and said in NZ they simply call them toastie pies. She said “Jaffle’s such a weird word for toastie pies when they are exactly that – a pie inside toast.” She added when she was a kid, they often had canned spaghetti in the middle “that was like molten lava.” Someone else chipped in saying, “Canned baked beans and cheese! Dinner of champions!” And a third person added, “I call them toasties and my favorite is with pasta tomato sauce, with Italian meatballs and some cheese. I made one for a friend and he couldn’t believe he’d never thought to try them like that. So good!”

I think the name jaffle,  was a riff off waffles — the old fashioned waffle irons were very similar in design. Some jaffle irons were round, but I didn’t like them — a waste of bread that had to be cut off.

I made the jaffle in the photos a few months ago — perfect winter food. Filled in this case with leftover beef stew with mushrooms.

I never had one with canned spaghetti and as a child I didn’t like baked beans so for me it was often leftover stew. And of course you can use any kind of filling including sweet ones, eg apple pie, all kinds of fruit. But my fave was simply made with cheese and fresh tomato — the cheese all melted and gooey. Yum.

My jaffle irons — I have two — are the old fashioned cast iron kind. You can get electrical ones these days — often called pie-makers, though some are called jaffle makers —  but while I still have gas for my stovetop I’ll keep using these ones.

They carry lots of memories from when I used to go camping, and we’d fill the jaffle irons with bread and whatever fillings we had, and put them into the fire, or the coals to toast. My jaffle irons (see pic below) are all blackened on the outside because of  years of fire — but only on the outside.

For years I hardly used my old jaffle irons because I had a gas griller, and used to make toasted sandwiches on that. But my new stove doesn’t have a separate griller, so now I make toast in the electric toaster (which isn’t as good IMO). 

And I hardly ever buy square sliced bread anymore, but I bought some to make dainty little white bread sandwiches to take to an afternoon tea, and there were some leftover slices, so when I saw the jaffle irons in the cupboard of course I had to make some.

Have you ever had a jaffle? Or do you call it something different? What’s your favorite filling?