Thought It Was Trash. I Was So, So Wrong.
June 1, 2025
Source: Reddit
At first, I wasn’t sure what I was holding. The mysterious object turned out to be a wafer iron designed to create delicious patterns.
I was knee-deep in a box of primitive looking tools at a flea market when I grabbed this heavy set of iron tongs with round plates at the end. It looked like it came from a blacksmith shop, not a cave. Or a medieval torture kit. My guess? Pancake flattener. Wrong.
It’s a cast iron wafer iron — and it’s a throwback I never knew I needed.
Just what is this cast iron waffle cookie irons?
It resembles a waffle maker, except it’s all cast iron, no electricity. Two plaited pans on long handles, to clamp over a fire or hobs. Using a wafer iron, you pour in batter, seal it shut, flip it several times and you have crisp, patterned cookies, some floral, some geometric.
The long handles will keep your hands at a safe distance from the heat. The iron keeps the batter flat. They dress both cookies up with decorative designs. It’s old-time baking at its best.
Flashback to Grandma’s kitchen
The moment I knew what it was, I envisioned my grandma making pizzelle, which are thin Italian cookies sprinkled with powdered sugar. She made them with an electric press, but she always had a story with every press about how her mom made them with a handheld cutter over the stove.
“Little cookies, that used to take effort,” she’d say. She wasn’t wrong.
You can still use it
Put this wafer iron on a gas stove or a campfire, and it still works. Scrub it clean, season it like any cast iron skillet and stir up a basic pizzelle or krumkake batter.
Eat the first few by yourself — they’re likely to peelers or overcook, as you practice. But once you figure it out? Total win.
Quick tip: Don’t be overzealous squishing down those plates. Unless you enjoy scraping burned batter off the bottom of little grooves for half an hour.
Why keep it?
Even if you never cook with a wafer iron, it’s a beautiful piece of kitchen history. Hang it on the wall. Open with it as a topic of conversation. Explain to your kids what it was like before store-bought cookies were served up in plastic trays.
But it’s more than decor. It’s hands-on. You can feel the weight, the heat, the timing of the words and you turn it over and you hope you got it. You smell the batter cooking, you don’t get that from hitting a button on a countertop appliance.
Final thoughts
It is more than a tool, the cast iron waffle cookie iron is. It’s a nod to the way things used to be made — by hand, with care. I cleaned up mine and tested out a few batches — eventually producing cookies that, had my grandmother made them in her day, might have asked for a nod to Grandma’s skill with her own wafer iron.
If you see one, grab it. Try it. At the very least, it looks fantastic on a shelf. In the best case it brings home something sweet.
