If you’re eating on the run, what’s better than a sealed triangle of toasted happiness?
There was a time, beginning around the mid-70s, that in homes across Australia the Breville jaffle maker would be switched on and two slices of white bread would have some butter, cheese and tomato whacked on them. Once the Breville’s green light flicked on, the bread and its filling would be toasted into two contained triangular parcels filled with gooey, cheesy goodness.
It was, and is, simple and delicious. But back then, did you think about the type of cheese you used or where the tomatoes came from? Perhaps not, but now you might. And you might be paying someone else to flick that switch too, because the jaffle has moved beyond a weekend lunch or weekday munch and become a viable commercial proposition; it’s taken the leap from household snack to booming cafe commodity.
Cafes across the country are setting up a jaffle iron in their kitchen and creating combinations of fillings that are far from the run-of-the-mill cheese and tomato. Think, smoked corn, chorizo and gruyere cheese; crab meat and béchamel; or macaroni cheese with house-made chilli sauce and you’re on the right track.
Perhaps these fillings are why we pay for them in cafes. We know how easy they are to make at home but why not let the professionals think up the whimsical combinations? They’re portable too – as Amy Kirchhoff, jaffle maker and co-owner of cafe in Sydney’s Mascot, says, “If you’re eating on the run, what’s better than a sealed triangle of toasted happiness?” And from a cafe owner’s point of view it’s a winner: “Two slices of white bread, no frying necessary, no smoke in the air, no grease,” says Kirchhoff.
While Tartine has quite a following for their jaffles, the food at , a bar that opened in the inner-city suburb of Fitzroy last year, is all about jaffles.
Bar Frankie embraces the jaffle as the Australian comfort food equivalent of a burger in the US or a taco in Mexico. (Image: Tom Goldner) Source: Tom Goldner
Two years ago, Bad Frankie co-owner Sebastian Costello went travelling through the USA and spent time in Nashville. The bartender-by-trade was looking for a good burger. “Everywhere I went I wanted to find regular foods in familiar places. I imagined I’d get a great burger in Nashville and I did,” he says. He then went south to Mexico and sought out tacos. “I found great tacos, in a great place.” When he returned home, with the plan to open a bar, he wanted to create a menu with an Australian version of that kind of familiar comfort food, and he and his business partner and fiancee, Elouise Brennan, settled on the jaffle.
“When people walk into Bad Frankie, they love the smell of toasting bread and melting cheese, it provokes a memory,” says Costello, and often the memory may be one from childhood, having jaffles with the family on a weekend, or of student days, “when there was little money,” he adds. Even now, jaffles are affordable snacks with most jaffles on menus around the country priced from $5 up to $10.
Amy Kirchhoff and Anthony Telford of Tartine have up to 20 jaffles on their menu. They too, see the emotional pull of the nostalgic snack. “Jaffles never really went away and it suits us just fine for the burger craze to give way a bit to allow jaffles to shine for a while. It’s comfort food at its best; when people reminisce about jaffles, it’s never a bad memory, is it?” says Kirchhoff.
The appetite for jaffles has been a winner for Clayton Thompson. Thompson, who opened his store in Geelong, Victoria, in January 2014, has just opened his third store – this time in the competitive arena of Melbourne’s CBD. “We have been thrilled with the response so far in the city,” says Thompson. “The response on social media has been phenomenal and we have been amazed with the queues that form during the busy lunch period.”
Jaffle Jaffle have embraced the multi-cultural jaffle, filling their breads with combinations inspired by cuisines around the globe, and their customers love it. Two of their most popular fillings are the ‘China Town’ jaffle filled with barbecued pork, pickled cucumber, spring onion, sweet soy and hoisin sauce; and Mexican Nights, bursting with chilli beef (or bean), spinach, jalapeños and cheddar. Thompson says they trial different combinations with family and friends, “Some fillings get the thumbs up and others are rejected. Our aged prosciutto and truffle oil jaffle tasted great but didn’t get the necessary approval from the unofficial selection committee.”
One of the more popular jaffles at Tartine is the lasagne jaffle. It’s actually a play on an old-school filling of leftover spaghetti and Kirchhoff describes it as “a mash-up between the tinned spaghetti jaffle and the leftover bolognese jaffles Anthony had as a kid”.
At Victoria's Jaffle Jaffle stores, fillings roam the world from a twist on lasagne to "Mexican Nights". (Image: Lauren Bamford) Source: Lauren Bamford
At Bad Frankie’s, the Shroom jaffle is filled with mushrooms cooked down in garlic, red wine and thyme, toasted with spinach, feta and mozzarella on wholemeal, and Costello says one of their most popular is a dessert jaffle called The Lamington: two slices of chocolate sponge cake filled with strawberry jam, toasted then finished with coconut, cream and chocolate sauce.
We’ve also spotted a beef jerky, cheddar and spicy chilli relish jaffle in a cafe in Perth, a breakfast bean jaffle in Adelaide, filled with beans, tomato sauce, bacon and manchego cheese; and a four-cheese concoction in Brisbane, oozing with cheddar, mozzarella, swiss and brie cheeses.
Two Aussie favourites combine in Bad Frankie's Lamington jaffle, made with slices of chocolate sponge cake filled with strawberry jam. (Image: Tom Goldner) Source: Tom Goldner
Can filling innovation go too far? Telford and Kirchhoff recently had their lasagne jaffle and a dessert jaffle, stuffed with marshmallow and banana, labelled Frankenfood by a food writer. It’s a term that suggests the food is obscure, outrageously over-portioned or bizarre in its combinations, although neither of these jaffles sound outrageous to us. It’s also a term the team at Tartine don’t subscribe to. “We’re not in the business of throwing foods together for the sake of sensationalism; we make food people actually want to eat. If that happens to be a lasagne sandwich, so be it,” says Kirchhoff.
The nostalgia, the convenience and the contemporary filling combinations are winning over jaffle lovers, but to keep them coming back, that jaffle they are forking out for has to deliver more than just a memory or a bit of filling fun. What’s the secret to making a consistently great jaffle? According to the Kirchhoff at Tartine, it’s “a deep-dish jaffle iron, bog-standard, square white bread and the balance of fillings”. The team at Bad Frankie say it’s all about the bread. “You need quality bread to hold everything in properly,” says Sebastian Costello, “and don’t forget to wait for the green light.” As our love of the jaffle refuses to wane, we have a feeling we’ll see more green lights flicking on around the country.
The secret to a gloriously golden result? Wait for the green light. (Image: Tom Goldner) Source: Tom Goldner
