How to choose a waffle maker for thin and thick waffles? Which is better?

Those who wish to start mak­ing home­made waf­fles, first of all, need to be puz­zled about which waf­fle iron is bet­ter to buy for their kitchen, tak­ing into account the func­tion­al char­ac­ter­is­tics and oper­a­tion fea­tures of this device.

Variety of species

Accord­ing to the thick­ness of the tiles, these devices can be:

• Clas­sic or reg­u­lar. They are used for the prepa­ra­tion of sweet square-shaped prod­ucts of small thick­ness, oth­er­wise called Amer­i­can waf­fles. Often they are rolled into a tube and filled with var­i­ous fill­ings.
• Thick­ened. Used for thick round waf­fles, also called Bel­gian waf­fles. In addi­tion, they can also cook some types of cook­ies that have a crispy crust and ten­der pulp in the mid­dle.

Accord­ing to their size, waf­fle irons can be:

• Com­pact.
• Large, designed for simul­ta­ne­ous bak­ing of sev­er­al prod­ucts.

Criterias of choice

When decid­ing which waf­fle iron to choose, it is impor­tant to con­sid­er the fol­low­ing fac­tors:

The dimen­sions of this device, its weight and pow­er

In this case, you should decide which waf­fle iron you need based on your own needs and pref­er­ences. For exam­ple, for home use, a minia­ture, com­pact device is bet­ter suit­ed, hav­ing a small weight and dimen­sions that allow it to be stored with­out prob­lems in a kitchen cab­i­net. Larg­er devices that make the bak­ing process faster are more suit­able for restau­rants, cafes and oth­er estab­lish­ments of a sim­i­lar pro­file.

Its pow­er also depends on the dimen­sions of the waf­fle iron. Due to the pres­ence of heat­ing ele­ments in the upper and low­er parts of this device, its ener­gy con­sump­tion is quite high. As a rule, the aver­age pow­er of stan­dard type mod­els is about 700 watts.

The weight of the waf­fle iron depends on the mate­r­i­al from which it is made. The most “weighty” can be called devices with a met­al case. It is worth not­ing that usu­al­ly such devices rarely weigh more than 2.5 kg.

The mate­ri­als it’s made from

The most com­mon mate­ri­als from which elec­tric waf­fle irons for Vien­nese and Amer­i­can waf­fles are made are stain­less steel and heat-resis­tant plas­tic. The first is resis­tant to ele­vat­ed tem­per­a­tures and aes­thet­ic appeal, and the sec­ond has high mechan­i­cal resis­tance, var­i­ous col­ors and afford­able cost.

The com­po­si­tion of the coat­ing of its work­ing sur­face

Most often it is a spe­cial com­po­si­tion with non-stick prop­er­ties. Thanks to this coat­ing, the waf­fles are even­ly baked, neat and even, and when tak­en out of the device, they do not stick to its sur­face.

Ceram­ic coat­ings that are chem­i­cal­ly neu­tral and do not react with cooked food are con­sid­ered the best in terms of char­ac­ter­is­tics and qual­i­ty. This is espe­cial­ly impor­tant for Vien­nese waf­fles, which have a min­i­mum thick­ness.

Avail­abil­i­ty of addi­tion­al options

These may include the fol­low­ing func­tions:

1. Rotary device. With it, after pour­ing the dough, the waf­fle iron can be rotat­ed around its axis, which allows you to dis­trib­ute the mass more even­ly.
2. Tem­per­a­ture con­troller. Allows you to change the tem­per­a­ture dur­ing bak­ing.
3. Ther­mo­stat. Designed to main­tain and main­tain a con­stant tem­per­a­ture inside the device even when it is turned off.
4. Tem­per­a­ture indi­ca­tor. Indi­cates when the device is ready for oper­a­tion.
5. Timer. Allows you to con­trol the bak­ing process and can auto­mat­i­cal­ly turn off the waf­fle iron after a pre­de­ter­mined amount of time.

Selection Tips

To make the right deci­sion about which waf­fle iron to buy for home use, use the fol­low­ing how-to guides:

• When buy­ing, care­ful­ly inspect the appli­ance, pay­ing spe­cial atten­tion to the con­di­tion of its non-stick coat­ing. It should have an even dis­tri­b­u­tion, and the lid of the device should close tight­ly.
• The ser­vice life of met­al prod­ucts is much high­er than plas­tic waf­fle irons.
• Give pref­er­ence to mod­els equipped with a ther­mo­stat with var­i­ous set­tings. Thanks to the pres­ence of this func­tion, it is pos­si­ble to bake waf­fles of dif­fer­ent col­ors and tex­tures.
• Keep in mind that in the case of this device, pow­er is not of para­mount impor­tance.
• To get high qual­i­ty waf­fles when bak­ing, choose mod­els equipped with a swiv­el mech­a­nism.
• A big plus for this device is the pres­ence of a cord stor­age com­part­ment.

If you need a waf­fle mak­er for Bel­gian waf­fles that are thick and airy, try to choose prod­ucts with a high qual­i­ty non-stick coat­ing. Well, if it is ceram­ics. In this case, it is also good to pur­chase mod­els with inter­change­able pan­els, with which you can make sand­wich­es and hot sand­wich­es.

Well, if you like crispy, ten­der tubes with a vari­ety of fill­ings, then you def­i­nite­ly need a good waf­fle iron for thin waf­fles. When buy­ing it, in addi­tion to all the above cri­te­ria, be sure to pay atten­tion to the time of its con­tin­u­ous oper­a­tion. For exam­ple, on sale you can find mod­els that require peri­od­ic shut­down after 15–20 min­utes. Such devices must be dis­con­nect­ed from the net­work and, after cool­ing down, turned on again, which may cause incon­ve­nience dur­ing their oper­a­tion.

Overview of the best models

Hav­ing fig­ured out what waf­fle irons are, and hav­ing stud­ied their capa­bil­i­ties and fea­tures, it’s time to decide which mod­el of which com­pa­ny to buy for your own use.

Accord­ing to cus­tomer reviews, the prod­ucts of the fol­low­ing brands can be con­sid­ered the best devices for bak­ing “volu­mi­nous” waf­fles:

Cla­tron­ic WA 3273

Stain­less steel is used as the body mate­r­i­al for this instru­ment. The mod­el is equipped with a non-stick coat­ing and a heat-insu­lat­ed han­dle that allows you to make the cook­ing process more con­ve­nient. It has an over­heat pro­tec­tion func­tion. Pow­er: 1000W. Cook­ing time for a serv­ing of wafers (2 pcs.) — about 2 min­utes. Price: about 1650 rubles.

Cla­tron­ic WA 3275

Anoth­er undoubt­ed “mar­ket leader”, this time made from heat-resis­tant plas­tic. Bakes sweet heart-shaped cook­ies. Cook­ing time — 3 min­utes. The num­ber of waf­fles is 5 pieces. Pow­er — 850 watts. Form diam­e­ter — 17 cm. Addi­tion­al func­tions: readi­ness indi­ca­tor, brown­ing degree adjust­ment, auto­mat­ic cable wind­ing. Price: approx­i­mate­ly 1240 rubles.

Maxwell MW-1572W

Minia­ture and com­pact mod­el, easy to store and car­ry with 700W pow­er. Equipped with pow­er and cook­ing indi­ca­tors. The coat­ing of the plates is resis­tant to mechan­i­cal stress. Num­ber of waf­fles — 2. Price: 790 rubles.

Vitek WX-1101

Well, this orig­i­nal and cute device com­bines a bright design (its body has a spec­tac­u­lar orange-yel­low col­or) and func­tion­al­i­ty. Its only draw­back is its small size and a lim­it­ed num­ber of waf­fles baked at a time (three pieces). Its pow­er is 1100 watts. The set includes: rub­ber­ized anti-slip feet, pow­er and readi­ness indi­ca­tors, as well as 100 wood­en sticks. Price: 1620 rubles.

If you want to buy a waf­fle mak­er for thin waf­fles, then you should pay atten­tion to the fol­low­ing mod­els:

Ori­on OR-WM01

A great option for home use, suit­able for Vien­nese waf­fles. The pow­er of this device is 900 watts. There are 5 heat­ing modes. Good for mak­ing waf­fle cakes. Price: 930 rubles.

Ves Elec­tric SK-A7

If you are decid­ing how to choose a waf­fle mak­er for mak­ing stuffed tubes, this option is ide­al for this. In equip­ment of the device there is a cone-form­ing. In more detail, the capa­bil­i­ties and fea­tures of the mod­el are pre­sent­ed in the fol­low­ing video:

It demon­strates all the main ele­ments includ­ed in its pack­age and tells how this waf­fle iron “behaves” in prac­tice.

There are a lot of good options suit­able for bak­ing deli­cious, crispy waf­fles, so choos­ing a high-qual­i­ty, easy-to-use thing is not dif­fi­cult at all. And then, hav­ing ful­ly appre­ci­at­ed the func­tion­al­i­ty and oth­er advan­tages of this device, with its help you will pre­pare orig­i­nal and unusu­al desserts that will bring joy to your loved ones.