I have the Duck and Waffle at the 40th floor of Heron Tower in London to thank (and to blame) for my recent addiction to food with waffle and duck.

Chef Daniel Dougherty’s crispy leg confit, fried duck egg, and mustard maple syrup are luscious beyond imaginable.

I decided to search online for a reasonably priced waffle maker. Fortunately the Andrew James Luxury Double Belgian Waffle Maker came with a 50-% discount, so I immediately planned for waffle nights with friends. 

It took a while for the waffle maker to be delivered but, although this blog post is not a product review, I have to say that the stainless steel waffle maker, weighing 4 kg is elegant.

Friends from school, Lia and Chiaki, came on a Friday night. I browsed the Food Network for recipes and came up with Chef Emeril Lagasse’s Fried Chicken and Buttermilk Waffles outlined here.

The recipe lists the ingredients and directions to make chicken, buttermilk waffles and essence (Emeril’s Creole seasoning) taken from his very first book New New Orleans Cooking.

We only cooked half of the waffle recipe with basic ingredients such as all-purpose flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, eggs, unsalted butter and buttermilk. Emeril is very specific in explaining the steps. Prepare the dry ingredients first and later mix the batch with wet ingredients.

The buttermilk for our batch was homemade, buttermilk substitute, a mixture of milk and vinegar.

It is very convenient to use a waffle maker as we can adjust the waffle’s crispiness by cooking it shorter or longer and to get the golden brown color that we prefer.

In the end, we did have Duck and Waffle. The duck, however, was a takeaway from The Four Seasons, a Chinese restaurant in Bayswater, London.

The UK Financial Times touted the place as having the best roast duck in the world. Our takeaway, though, was the aromatic crispy duck that will complement the texture of the homemade waffle. The roast duck is equally good, but the texture is softer compared to the crispy duck.

Apparently waffle, which today is a common food, dates back to the iron age when human developed tools and iron plates for cooking.

According to a story in theKitchn, From Wafers to Cones: A Short History of the Waffle, the ancient Greeks cooked flat cakes between hot metal plates. 

As they spread throughout medieval Europe, the cakes – with flour, water or milk, and sometimes eggs as the ingredients– became known as wafers.

The food was not for the royals only; farmers and kings had waffles during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Often consumed in connection with religious occasions and saints' days, they were sold by street vendors, so-called waferers in England and gaufriersin in France

As we were still on waffle night, dessert is of course waffle, but we decided to pair the waffles with something sweet.

Häagen-Dazs cookies and cream was our choice. In addition to the ice cream, we had cream cheese frosting and pieces of white chocolate.

My next waffle night was with different friends: Indri, Sarfin and Adelin. The waffle base we had was the same with the one I cooked for the first waffle night but we used full recipes for chocolate and raspberry waffles.

Although raspberries were not in season yet, they were quite easy to get. The color brightened the waffle, while the sweet and sour taste complemented the chocolate. We just melted dark chocolates in the microwave oven, poured it on the waffle and added some sprinkles for decoration.

I was quite satisfied with both waffle nights and can proudly say that scrumptious waffles are not hard to make. The Duck and Waffle on the 40th floor of Heron Tower, however, remains my favorite duck eatery.

I have yet to try its Belgian Waffles, a combination of toffee apple, caramelized banana, homemade nutella, vanilla ice cream, and peanut crunch.

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Waffles prepared by Maira Niode

Images: London skyline: QQ7/Shutterstock; Duck & Waffle and Belgian Waffle: Duck & Waffle; New waffle maker: Andrew James; Old waffle maker: Old, Steve Heap/Shutterstock; Ingredients: Anna Hoycuk/Shutterstock; All others: Omar Niode Foundation.