Dael-ightful festive snacking with Daelmans Stroopwafels

I recently received a package of goodies from Daelmans containing their wonderfully indulgent Stroopwafels. If you're unfamiliar with them (and more fool you because theyr're delicious !), they're traditional Dutch waffles filled with gooey caramel. Daelmans is the leading producer of Stroopwafels and over 1 billion Daelmans products are eaten worldwide every year.

Stroopwafels were created in Gouda, Holland as an indulgent accompaniment to coffee so they asked me to create my perfect afternoon coffee spread to combat that 3pm slump. Well, I'm not actually a coffee drinker but that certainly doesn't stop me enjoying Stroopwafels, or coming up with an afternoon snack.

After some experimenting with ice cream (melts too quickly) and stewed apple (makes the waffles go soggy and too messy to eat), I came up with the ultimate afternoon snack - a simple but delicious Stroopwafel banana sandwich. After sandwiching slices of banana between two waffles, I considered spreading Nutella on top or drizzling with caramel sauce but the caramel inside the Stroopwafels actually makes it sweet and tasty enough as it is. Simple perfection and ready in seconds !

Daelmans also said that Stroopwafels are delicious eaten the traditional way, placed on top of a hot cup of coffee so that the caramel melts. Sophie tested this (you can tell from the mug !) with a mug of hot chocolate and declared it delicious, although she then went on to eat another Stroopwafel straight from the pack and said that was equally scrummy so both ways work very well !

They're far to good to keep for afternoon snacks though. We've been munching on these for breakfast too, alongside cereal, pink grapefruit and pomegranate juice. Sounds like a pretty balanced breakfast to me and it certainly gets the thumbs up from the Madhouse kids.

In fact, they love the Stroopwafels so much that they decided we should leave some out for Santa on Christmas Eve, alongside his traditional mince pie and glass of Baileys. Usually Rudolph gets a carrot but I only had frozen ones left so he got an apple this year instead. He didn't seem to mind and Santa certainly made short work of the Stroopwafels !

Whatever the occasion or the time of day, Stroopwafels get a unanimous vote of approval at The Madhouse.

Disclosure : We received some Stroopwafels to take part in the challenge.