TESTED: THESE ARE THE TASTIEST STROOPWAFELS FROM THE SUPERMARKET

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: these stroopwafels are the best from the supermarket.

Nothing beats the smell of stroopwafels, except for eating freshly made stroopwafels with the syrup still a bit warm. A must if you stroll through the Albert Cuyp market in Amsterdam. Less fresh but often tasty, you can buy them at the supermarket, where the shelf of stroopwafels is remarkably diverse. We were curious about the store brand and bought five. Which one is the tastiest and which one can go straight to the trash after one bite?

In our test, we included five supermarkets, namely: Lidl, Dirk, Albert Heijn, Coop, and Jumbo. The stroopwafels were all tasted on the same day they were purchased.

Blind tested
The test panel tastes all the stroopwafels blind, meaning that only the note-taker knows where each stroopwafel was bought. The purchased stroopwafels are all natural, so without added flavor indicated on the label, and they all have the same checkered cookie.

Too much caramel flavor
Number 1 comes from Lidl. Jeffrey: ‘A good cookie with a good filling.’ But that filling may not please everyone. Robbert: ‘I find the filling too caramel. A stroopwafel should be syrupy and not taste like caramel.’ Sharon: ‘I find this really very sweet. After a small piece, I have no appetite for the rest of the cookie.’ Bo: ‘I don’t like the aftertaste.’ Lauretta: ‘I don’t find the filling very nice, but the cookie is fine, a bit hard, but I think this is okay.’ Robbert: ‘I find the cookie too hard.’

Notable: vanilla
Number 2 comes from Dirk. Lauretta: ‘This tastes like vanilla.’ Sharon: ‘A very different flavor, less sweet and indeed: vanilla.’ Jeffrey: ‘The previous stroopwafel I tasted was more compressed, here there is more air between the cookie and the syrup.’ Bo: ‘I find it stickier.‘

Deliciously chewy
The third cookie is notably pale. This one comes from Jumbo. Robbert: ‘The syrup is a bit softer than the rest and when you squeeze it, you can see there is more syrup in it. Well balanced.’ Bo: ‘Tasty cookie too. Chewy, mmm.’ Jeffrey: ‘I would also buy this separately as a cookie.’

Well filled
The fourth stroopwafel from the test comes from Albert Heijn. Jeffrey: ‘This is really a classic stroopwafel.’ Robbert: ‘The flavor of the waffle is very good, a market-stroopwafel feel. Nice crunch too and well filled.’ Jeffrey and Lauretta agree. Lauretta: ‘This is really what you want when you buy a stroopwafel.’

Way too buttery
The last stroopwafel is dry and too sweet. Robbert: ‘Butter toffee, this makes me feel very nauseous very quickly.’ Lauretta: ‘The taste of toffee dominates way too much.’ Bo: ‘Really a buttery aftertaste too, too much.’ Jeffrey: ‘This is very heavy and the butter dominates.’ Sorry Coop, work to be done.

The winner
That is number 4, except for Bo, who was most charmed by number 3. The loser comes from Coop. This is too much of everything. Less proves once again to be more.